Thunderbird Magazine, Volume 54, Number 1 2000

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THUNDERBIRD Magazin e WWW.T-BIRD.EDU 54/1 / 2000
THUNDERBIRD
Page 2
Beware the ROI
'Merger mania' has now gone global.
But, beware! Cross-border M&As are often
fraught with peril.
Page 8
No Matter Where
They Roam
A single digital device could soon serve you in
Miami, Madrid, Melbourne, and Medellin in
ways you can't even yet imagine.
Page 14
MIMLA Graduates
First Class
They were the first of a new breed ofT-birds.
They remained in Mexico, yet earned joint
degrees from two very impressive schools.
Page 16
The Original
Thunderbirds
Before Thunderbird trained students for global
business missions, it trained World War II
pilots for missions of a very different sort.
Page 22
Bonjour et Bienvenue
Thunderbird Europe's French-Geneva Center
expands and begins admitting
full-time students
Thunderbird is America's premier
TABLE OF CONTENTS
source of global management education with
operations in the U.S., France, Russia,
China, Japan, Mexico and Taiwan.
Page 1
FROM GLENDALE TO GLOBAL
Thunderbird increasingly takes its programs,
professors, and students around the globe.
Page 12
FACULTY VIEWPOINT
Privatization was once seen as the 'cure all' for
many nations, but is it? Professor Shoshana Tancer
tells the tale.
Page 20
CAREER FAIR 2000
World's best companies meet world's best talent at
'way cool' Thunderbird event.
Page 24
NO RESTRICTIONS
Don't tell these feisty T-bird women that the world
wasn't - or isn't - ready for top female executives.
Page 26
AMERICAS CONFERENCE
When you can bring country presidents and scores of
Latin America political and business leaders together
in one room, Miami becomes the place to be.
Page 28
HOMECOMING
It was 'the night the lights went out in Glendale' but
the Global Issues 2000 class, The Fall e2v Forum,
the Pub, and other events still rocked.
Page 33
EXECUTIVE EDUCATION DELIVERS
Today's brightest global risers are having
Thunderbird deliver degree and other training right
to their regions, companies, and work desks.
Page 34
EUROPEAN REUNION
Page 36
THUNDERBIRD GLOBAL BUSINESS
FORUMS IN ASIA
Page 38
T-BIRD NEWS
Page 40
NETWORK NEWS
Page 42
UPDATES
ABOUT OUR COVER
Dr. Anant Sundaram is a leading finance and
global strategy professor at Thunderbird.
~~------------
54 / 1 / 2000 P AGE p . 1
ONE
FROM
TO
GLENDALE
GLOBAL
For more than 50 years, Thunderbird has worked to bring the
world to Glendale. The School works just as hard to take
Thunderbird's programs, professors, and students around the world.
As the world's only truly global management school. Thunder-
" bi rd is reinvigorating its reach to all corners of the world," said
John Seybolt. sen ior vice president for Academic Affairs at
Thunderbird. "From executive education partnerships with companies
small and large on four continents, to the Thunderbird Centers near
Geneva and in Tokyo, to our programs in Mexico, China, and Russi a, to
the Winterims we hold throughout the world,
Thunderbird is, literally, spreading its brand of
global management education to people and
places where such opportunities were just a
dream a few short years ago."
During this past year alone:
• Thunderbird trained 1,000 working execu­tives
in 10 non-U.S. countries as well as 3,500
others who were U.S. based. That training, which
was delivered by Executive Education, included
everything from three- to lO-day seminars on
topics such as ebusiness, finance, and marketing;
to multi-week, custom company programs.
• The Thunderbird Center for Business Skills
Development (CBSD) emerging markets team
trained over 200 and 2,320 people in China and
Russia respectively. That training included every­thing
from skills-based Becker CPA reviews to
custom corporate programs such as the School's
Looking Glass management simulation tool.
ness Forums - which were held in Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, Miami,
Glendale, and Silicon Valley. These Forums are one-half-day or full-day
topic-speci fic programs that are held in different regions every year.
• 480 full -time 'traditional' MIM students studied in at least one of
Thunderbird's overseas programs during the last year.
• 440 students from 43 nations did internships in 20 countries.
• Approximately 60 professors taught at Thun­derbird's
full-time faciliti es in France and Japan,
at its summer program in Guadalajara, Mexico,
in either its Latin America-based MIMLA pro­gram
or Russia and China-based CBSD programs,
or at one or more of the other custom programs
Executive Education runs worldwide.
• Fourteen Thunderbird professors took stu­dents
overseas during last January's three-week
Winterim session. Others hosted off-site courses in
places such as Wall Street and Washington, D.C.
According to Seybolt. Thunderbird has aggres­sively
formed strategic alliances with major cor­porations,
governments, and prominent business
schools to better serve business leaders globally.
Many of those people are already Thunderbird
alumni who are retooling skills to remain com­petitive.
Others are corporate champions who
want to strengthen their global market edge by
having their people trained.
• Thunderbird graduated its first class of dis­tance
learning-trained students on June 30th. In
fact, there is now one Master of International
Management for Latin America (MlMLA) student
(232 in all) for every six traditional MIM students
at Thunderbird. MIMLA is a joint degree program
Thunderbird's Dr. Roy Herberger is granted a
formal audience with Jiang Six ian,
secretary general of the Shanghai
Municipal People's Government,
"Executive Education is no longer an entitle­ment
or simply a benefit. It is being used as a
change agent in organizations to establish and
reinforce company initiatives and growth," said
Bud Robyn, senior vice president of Thunder­bird's
Exec. Ed. group. "Thunderbird likes to
during his visit to China.
offered in partnership with the Instituto Tecnol6gico y de Estudios
Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), a leading business school in Latin
America. MlMLA students earn their two-year MIMLA degrees by leverag­ing
distance leaming technology from seven ITESM sites.
• The School launched its first regional Master in International Man­agement
for executives in cooperation with the Acer Group in Taiwan.
This program serves working professionals throughout Asia who com­mute
to Acer's Aspire Academy for eight professional development work­shops.
When combined with two modules on the Thunderbird campus
in Glendale and interactive web-based instruction, executives can quali­fy
for an MIM degree. Thunderbird is rolling out similar programs in
cooperation with other leading organizations throughout the world.
• 1,400 people attended one or more of Thunderbird's Global Busi-think
of Executive Education as a strategic weapon that can be used by
business managers around the globe."
One of Exec. Ed's key strengths appears to be its ability to form close,
long-term relationships with key clients. "By truly partnering with com­panies,
we can provide services such as needs assessments, custom pro­grams,
evaluations, and consulting services," Robyn said. "Then, we act as
a navigator, facilitating our partners through today's business challenges."
According to Robyn, companies are asking Thunderbird to offer
'seamless training solutions globallY: They want everything from very
'high-touch' senior level and on-site custom programs, to full-fledged
executive degrees, to mid-range, functional courses, to introductory-level
culture, business, and language classes that might even be delivered
directly to an employee's desk. •
p.2 WWW.T-BIRD.EDU 54/ 1/2000
Cross-border M&As are
often fraught with peril
BY LINDSEY MICHAELS
hile mergers and acquisitions (M&As) used to be mainly a U.S. craze, 'merger
mania' is now exploding globally. But let the business world beware because
although M&As are supposed to facilitate market entry, technology transfer, and the
achievement of worldwide economies of scale, virtually every study shows that, on
average, M&A costs and challenges often outweigh the short-term gains to the
acquirer. For many, offshore M&As have even turned into full-blown nightmares.
Those companies simply hadn't been prepared for doing due diligence abroad - where information
access, reporting practices, business cultures, and communication styles can present major challenges. •
So, how can global T-birds help their companies do M&As wisely? We asked a few experts.
"Here at Delphi, which is a General Motors
spin-off. we've been averaging one acquisition
per month since 1995," said David Rocher '93,
manager, mergers & acquisitions, at Delphi
Automotive Systems. "The fIrst thing we've
found is that you have to have a partner or
someone on your own team who really speaks
the language, understands the culture, and
knows the local accounting practices.
"For instance, if you don't understand the
nuances and functions of certain contacts,
you'll never fInd the right person to ask the real
hands-on questions," he said. "Likewise, you
have to understand exactly how numbers are
confIgured and reported under that country's
accounting standards, as well as how things like
labor laws may affect a company's ability to
hire or layoff workers."
According to Rocher, truly successful M&As
only occur in cases when you know your part­ners
as well as you know their books. Do they
have a history of getting into unsuccessful ven­tures?
Do they share your approach to business,
work style, and general ethics? Any of these fac­tors
can derail a merger that looks rock-solid
fInancially.
Rocher added that Delphi also employs a
post acquisition integration team. "our imple­mentation
team is made up of people from dif­ferent
functional areas who have entirely differ­ent
skill sets from the acquisition team."
Rocher termed that group 'critical' and said
they face many challenges, such as integrating
legacy systems, and trying to consolidate peo­ple
and operations into one cohesive team.
As a Deloine & Touche consultant, Van Beer
'94 has a slightly different view of M&As. He
and his company provide third party due dili­gence
and acquisition advisory services to com­panies.
"On the 'buy' side, we look at the target
company to see if it makes strategic sense, then
analyze product lines, price points, and growth
potential to determine revenue flow or cost sav­ings.
We also look at existing managers to ana­lyze
their strengths, weaknesses, and ability to
fIt in with the new company."
According to Beer, there are two types of
acquirers: strategic buyers and financial ones.
Strategic buyers are usually in the same or relat­ed
industries and are looking for product and
management synergies. Financial buyers are
focused on returns, not synergies, and are more
concerned about existing management because
they are not good at operating companies.
"We do financial analysis from both an
accounting and tax perspective and, a lot of
times, it's the tax consequences that drive or kill
the deal," Beer said. Given that many countries
have their own accounting standards, auditors
really have to understand the intricacies of each
system. "Depreciation is one of the biggest
areas we look at. We need to know if the com­pany
is using the straight line or accelerated
method so that we can back things out and
make apples-to-apples comparisons."
Beer's team also has to know a lot about
country-specifIc nuances. "France, for instance,
has a very tax-driven accounting system. That
means that they tend to push revenue recogni-
54 / 1/ 2000 WWW.T-B1RD . EDU p .3
p .4
tion back and book expenses quickly. Once you
understand that they work to minimize
reportable income you can convert and com­pare
more effectively." Beer added that U.S.
public companies tend to do just the opposite;
they post cash quickly to help drive up per­share
prices.
"But you can't stop after the financial due
diligence is done," Beer said. "You have to do
cultural due diligence as well." Beer has even
found large cultural and industry variations to
the due diligence approach. "We went into one
French company for what we considered a very
early information-only meeting and found that
they were very much into finding out details.
They wanted to know how each process worked
from A to Z and, essentially, things that went
right down to the daily job activities for each
person." However, Beer's Mexican client
approached things differently. Its people
focused less on the financial due diligence
process and more on getting to know their
potential partners. "They were much more rela­tionship
driven and informal."
Most experts say that relationships are criti­cal
success factors in MMs.
"Europeans tend to react more slowly and to
be more deliberate in their decision process
than Americans. This has presented real prob­lems
for European companies - especially
those that have acquired Silicon Valley-based
high-tech fums," said Beer. "Many aren't work­ing
out because the Silicon Valley work culture
simply doesn't tolerate having R&D sidelined
for months while the corporate office back in
Europe debates some­thing."
"Acquisitions of high­tech
firms, especially in
Silicon Valley, have
proved to be problemat­ic
for non-U.S. firms,"
LEFT David Rocher '93, who manages M&As at
Delphi Automotive, says cultural differences can
quickly derail a merger that looked rock-solid finan ­cially.
Delphi employs a special post-merger imple­mentation
team. RIGHT Van Beer '94, who analyzes
M&As for Deloitte & Touche cautions that financial
due diligence is just the first of many factors to
consider when looking at cross-border M&As.
WWW.T-BIRD.EDU
added Anant Sundaram, an associate professor
of finance at Thunderbird. "With high-tech
companies, your assets basically walk out the
door each evening and you can only hope that
they come back tomorrow. Those assets are
information-based and reside in peoples' heads
- which makes them much more difficult to
value, acquire, and integrate successfully than
equipment or cash flows," he said. "Those assets
are also more difficult to retain and motivate."
Sundaram added that in addition to cultural
challenges, non-U.S. firms also face some very
real financial challenges when acquiring high­tech
companies. "Non-U.S. firms traditionally
don't offer stock options and bonuses that are
considered a 'no-brainer' here. So what does a
company like Ericsson, for example, do? If they
offer stock options to U.S. employees they have
to offer them to their other 100,000-plus
employees worldwide. But doing so would cost
some real money - not to mention the fact that
it would tum their corporate culture upside
down," he said. "Look at Sweden, where Erics­son
is based. Employees would be taxed on the
entire value of their stock options in the year
those options were granted - whether they
were exercised or not. How should company
officials compensate for that fact when their
U.S. employees are only taxed on the gains they
realize when their options are exercised?"
Stock-related challenges actually playa larg­er
role in M&As. For instance, non-U.S. compa­nies
face the very real hurdle of having to list
their stock on a U.S. exchange before being
allowed to engage in stock-based MMs involv­ing
U.S. companies. But listing that
stock opens them to numerous SEC­related
(Security and Exchange Com­mission)
and market fluctuation chal­lenges.
Curtis Fox '88, the London-based
director of investor relations at
Edelman Public Relations Worldwide
and a TAA EMEA Council member,
understands several of those chal­lenges
first-hand. "One of our clients,
which is currently doing an IPO (ini­tial
public offering), has decided that it
only wants its stock listed on
Germany's Neuer Markt exchange, not
on either U.S. exchange," he said. "The
main reason is the SEC. Under SEC
guidelines, companies have to honor a
'qu iet period' where they can't promote their
company. Listing on the Neuer Markt doesn't
bring that requirement. However, since they're
not listing this stock on a U.S. exchange, we at
Edelman can't promote or market our client to
potential U.S. institutional and retail investors
- not even those Americans who are living in
Europe."
54/1/2000
THE WORLD OF M&As
According to Anant Sundaram, associ­ate
professor of finance, who teaches
both MIM and Executive Education
courses at Thunderbird, U.S. companies were
involved in approximately 90,000 M&A
deals between 1981 and 1999, with the value
of those deals approaching US$8.0 trillion.
That had made the U.S. the world's most
active M&A market, but that gap is tighten­ing.
U.S. firms tackled US$2.5 trillion worth
of MMs during 1998 and 1999, followed by
the European Union (EO) with US$l.S tril­lion,
and the four most active M&A countries
in Latin America - Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
and Mexico - which did a distant US$120
billion. However, M&A activity in the EU has
nearly equaled U.S. activity year-to-date in
2000; it was US$987 billion in the EU, com­pared
to US$1.08 trillion in the U.S., accord­ing
to Securities Data Corporation.
While the mega-deals typically garnered
the lion's share of media and public policy
attention, the average M&A was much small­er
- about US$78 million per deal -
although that average has been trending up.
That average was between US$130 and 140
million per deal during the last three years.
"The reality is that today's global managers
are often involved in a series of smaller acqui­sitions
throughout their careers, many of
which happen at the divisional or country
level - not corporate, • said Sundaram.
He said that there is currently no conclu­sive
research evidence showing whether a
series of smaller acquisitions is ultimately
more profitable for companies than one
mega-deal, but his early research into the
subject leads him to believe that this could
be true.
"For one thing, smaller acquisitions tend
to be cash-based, rather than stock-based: he
explained. "That means you pay the money
upfront and go on. When you use your own
stock as the medium of exchange in acquisi­tions,
you give away ownership of future cash
flows rather than preserving them for your
current shareholders. You bring in a new
group of shareholders that you have to paci­fy."
Sundaram also said that when companies
announce that they are planning to use their
own stock as merger currency, they signal the
market that they think their stock is over­priced
- that even if they pay for all poten­tial
future gains with stock today, at today's
price, they will still be getting a good bargain
54 / 1/2000
- and, because of that, the announcement
effect is that their stock price almost always
drops, relative to cash-based deals.
"When you acquire a company, you basi­cally
do a present value (PV) calculation of
all the future earnings - both base-case and
synergies - you expect to realize, then you
pay for them today. That money's gone," said
Sundaram. "The target company's sharehold­ers
immediately pocket the PV of the full
long-term value you've identified and walk
away happy. It's the acquiring company that's
left trying to realize all of the long-term effi­ciencies
and gains it's already paid for. That's
why when a merger is announced, the target
company's stock price usually shoots up
while the acquiring company's stock
price drops, or at best, stays flat, n he said.
Smaller cash acquisitions may work
better for others reasons too. For one
thing, post-merger integration is easier.
' Consider the example of Cisco, a compa­ny
that has acquired over 60 companies in
a lO-year period. Cisco is a master of the
M&A. One reason it's done so well is that
it has typically acquired smaller compa­nies
- and it's a lot easier to integrate 500
new people and their systems into a work­force
of 20,000 than it is to bring in
10,000." Sundaram believes that size may
also play a critical role in the upfront
negotiation process. "When relative
equals face off, the target company is able
to exert more influence to extract more
value and concessions than a small com­pany
could do. Smaller companies tend
to have less negotiating power, so they get.
beat down more." Smaller acquisitions
also tend to be less driven by 'managerial
hubris: or empire-building considera­tions.
According to Sundaram, M&As were
pretty much an Anglo-American phenome­non
for the last two decades, but as the
European M&A numbers show, that trend is
now changing. 'Until a few years ago,
European, Japanese, and Korean companies
hadn't woken up to the fact that they would
have to change and grow to survive in the
evolving global marketplace for products,
people, technology, and capital, n said
Sundaram. "Like it or not, world businesses
and their corporate governance practices are
moving towards the contractarian Anglo­American,
shareholder-oriented, 'what have
you done for me lately; business model."
Governance styles in both Asia and
Continental Europe had traditionally been
WWW.T-BIRD .EDU
much more stakeholder-oriented, relation­ship-
based, and relied on what Sundaram
calls a "communitarian style of doing busi­ness
where employees, banks, suppliers, and
so forth, played substantial governance
roles."
"Europe has been the fastest to change
outside the AnglO-American countries of the
U.S., Canada, UK, and Australia; with North­ern
Europe - especially Sweden and Finland
- leading the way," he said. He added that
Japan and South Korea need to get much
more aggressively involved in M&As.
"The biggest challenge to non-U.S. com­panies
is that they can't do stock-based
Thunderbird's Dr. Anant Sundaram says that most
country level managers must now analyze and
implement many small- to mid-sized mergers
during their careers. Are they ready?
FOR DISCUSSION AND ANALY IS of issues men­tioned
here, see: "Cross-border Acquisition of
u.s. Technology Assets: in California Marutge­ment
Review, Spring 2000, and "Purposes and
Accountability of the Corporation: Corporate
Governance at a Crossroads," in Law and
Contemporary Problems, Summer 1999. A PDF
version of the latter can be downloaded free of
charge from Dr. Sundaram's AMTB profile at
h ltp://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?ABSTRACT_J
D=220570
p .5
acquisitions of U.S. companies unless their
stock is also listed on a U.S. exchange. But if
they list it, they become subject to the same
U.S. laws, shareholder scrutiny, and market
volatility as U.S. companies. That has basi­cally
come as a rude shock for many non­U.
S. companies."
So too has the concept of 'hostile'
takeovers. While investment banker and
lawyer driven hostile takeovers were fairly
commonplace in the States during the
1980s. Sundaram said they fell out of vogue
here as the market matured. ' With hostile
takeovers, you usually pay a higher premium
and have almost no inside-based due dili-gence
data," he said. "They also take
longer to complete and tend to bring
more integration issues. On the other
hand, when a takeover is openly hostile,
you can be more ruthless, and thus
faster, during the integration process."
According to Sundaram, Europe's evo­lution
through the hostile takeover
phase is normal and should lead to the
type of "restructuring, deconglomerat­ing,
and return to focus" that the U.S.
began experiencing two decades ago.
Although painful, those processes ulti ­mately
helped spawn the economic
boom the U.S. has enjoyed.
So, will another region or country sur­pass
the U.S. as the dominant global
economic player during the next 10
years or so as they master M&As?
Probably not, said Sundaram.
"J think that throughout the next
decade, the world will still be beating a
path to the U.S:s door," he said. "For
one thing, English is now the language
of world business and the Anglo­American
style of corporate governance
is becoming the world's standard. Even
more of a reason, however, is the fact that the
changes we're talking about, the sweeping
cultural, legal, and tax reforms that, by neces­sity,
come along with this process of driving
towards enhanced productivity, will funda­mentally
change all aspects of life in the
countries in which they're happening. This is
going to turn governments, unions, and the
social welfare systems upside down - and
there will be a fair amount of push-back. So
we're probably going to see the rest of the
world taking one or two steps backwards for
every three steps forward during the next few
years, while the U.S. just keeps plowing on
ahead."
- LINDSEY MICHAELS
p.6
Fox said that part of his firm's job involves
knowing how each investment market works
and what its unique communications-related
regulations are. He must then help educate his
clients and try to manage their expectations
about what is - or isn't - possible given their
budgets and the breadth of their new market
place. "Given that it's so easy fo r people to
access information now, we also have to really
work with all parties, in all countries, to ensure
message consistency and to coordinate when
and what we ultimately release," he said. "Some­thing
that gets released into one market will
almost certainly reach into others, and that can
impact our client's sales as well as its stock price."
According to Fox, small, established Euro­pean
companies have bee.n doing IPOs, then
using their newly acquired capital for M&As.
"This year has just been a boom time for M&As
in Europe," he said. "Many European compa­nies
had economies of scale in their individual
markets - France or Germany; for instance -
but with the advent of the Euro and the trend
towards globalizing. they're realizing that they
need to play on a more regional or global basis
to remain competitive. We try to help."
Besides helping its clients generate
publicity and brand awareness in each
new marketplace, Fox said that his com­pany
must also counsel clients about
the potential risks of IPOs. That's
because hostile takeovers are in vogue
in Europe, which means that compa­nies
that float might actually make
themselves targets as well as potential
acquirers.
"We didn't use to have that many
unfriendly takeovers here," Fox said,
"certainly not across borders. But big
investors are now encour­aging
outsiders to come
across borders, take over
local companies, then
restructure all the pieces
into bigger, better global
businesses. What we're
seeing is an industry by
industry cycle," he said.
"One company obtains TOP Bea Cueto '87
competitive advantage BELOW Dr. Franc;ois
through an M&A and the Lhabitant
others - whether around
the corner or the world - have to fo llow, have
to consolidate, in order to compete."
That's just one of the many challenges of
today's new global market place, where manag­ing
your brand, funds, culture, and investors
are all critical to long term M&A success. Now,
don't you wish you'd taken better notes while
you were taking that course on Global
Strategies? •
WWW.T- BIRD . EDU 54 / 1/2 000
M&As. IPOs. AND GLOBAL WEALTH
Private banking has been one of the
hottest topics - and jobs - at Thunder­bird
of late. And no wonder! Over one
million people became millionaires last year,
according to the 2000 Merrill Lynch/Gemini
Consulting World Wealth Report. That report
predicted that high net worth individuals'
(HNWI) wealth would grow by more than 12
percent per year through 2004, to US$44.9
trillion. It also said that more than 55,000
'ultra high net worth' individuals worldwide
already have personal financial assets exceed­ing
US$30 million each.
1\vo reasons were given for the growth. The
first was global real gross domestic product
(GOP) expansion, which helped create new
businesses and markets. The second was the
global stock market, which grew by 37 percent
last year.
There is little doubt that both the number
of HNWls and their respective wealth will
increase throughout the world as more and
more family businesses and Internet start-ups
do initial public offerings
(IPOs) or get acquired.
"Traditionally, most Euro­pean
businesses have relied
on personal capital and bank
loans to grow. Very few went
to the next step, to an IPO,"
explained Franc;ois Lhabitant,
an assistant professor of
finance at the Thunderbird
Europe's French-Geneva Cen­ter
and the head of quantita­tive
risk management at
Union Bancaire Privee in Geneva,
Switzerland. "In fact, until very
recently, an IPO was considered a
symbol of success in countries like
France, Switzerland, and Germany."
According to Lhabitant, few peo­ple
in those countries understood
equity markets. In fact, he said,
many perceived the stock market as
a casino, where only the very rich could play
and win. And, with capital gains taxed at rates
of up to 47 percent, it just made more sense
for most people to invest in other ways.
"For instance, when France Telecom went
public, it offered its employees the opportu­nity
to invest up to 25,000 francs, about
US$4,000, in its stock," he said. "What's
more, it offered to lend them the money at
zero percent interest and provided the guar­antee
that it would buy back that stock at the
original price after three years. That was a ter-rific
deal and yet, relatively few employees
took advantage of it. "
Today, Lhabitant said, Europeans are
becoming much more comfortable with stock
and are, in fact, watching the proliferation of
Internet start-ups, the increasing popularity of
stock options, the trend towards IPOs, the
impending tax law changes, and the influx of
online brokerage services with great interest.
Many are also cheering the recent creation of
secondary stock markets in France, Switzer­land,
and Germany that have made it possible
for smaller companies to get listed.
Such changes have already helped fuel
Europe's current M&A craze. They could also
easily spark a new wave of wealth creation and
significant cultural changes throughout
Europe, according to Lhabitant.
Similar trends are also starting to sweep
through Latin America and Asia, which has 1. 7
million HNWls.
"Argentina and Chile, where I work exten­sively,
have a very sophisticated business envi­ronment
with very highly educated global
investors,' said Beatrice Cueto '87, a senior
vice president at Salomon Smith Bamey in
Miami, who provides financial advice and serv­ices
to the ultra high net worth individuals,
especially wealth generating entrepreneurs.
"Chile, for instance, has benefited greatly
from a large number of U.S. educated econo­mists,
known as the 'Chicago Boys: who stud­ied
in the U.S. then returned to Chile where
they were influential in reshaping their coun­try
and transforming it into a very advanced
economy: she said. ·One of their greatest
merits was the privatization of the Pension
Fund system, which, in turn, developed
Chile's capital markets."
Largely because of them, Cueto said, the
entrepreneurs in Argentina and Chile have
enjoyed a long history of doing business with
multi-nationals, and have, therefore, been able
to develop worldwide contacts.
'The 'Bigger is Better' trend has spread to this
Southern Cone of Latin America," said Cueto,
"where they have experienced a large volume
of mergers and acquisitions during the past
years. This trend has touched most sectors of
the economy, including financial services,
health care, and telecommunications."
Cueto added that because of all of the above
factors, ultra high net worth Argentineans and
Chileans have been active global investors for
many years. She believes they have paved the
investment path for those who follow.
- LINDSEY MICHAELS
p.B WWW.T-BIRD.EDU
NO MATTER
WHERE
THEY ROAM
54/1/2000
Global telecommunications systems help people
transact business and keep in touch
'94(above) and
Kirchdorfer 'S7 of Ericsson say
personal communications devices
will create entirely new business
and personal opportunities.
Bjorn submitted this picture
using a digital camera
attachment to his Palm Pilot,
then emailed the shot. (right)
BY LINDSEY MICHAELS
he flies from Miami, to Madrid, to Melbourne, then back home through Medellin - 5 using a single cellular phone throughout her three-week trip. That phone - or person­al
communications device (peD) - doesn't just allow her to send and receive tele­phone
calls, photos, and emails, it also alerts her that a favorite friend is also in Madrid.
Then since both have also pre-programmed in their fondness for fish, the peD provides
a list of nearby Sushi bars - along with their directions and menus.
Sound farfetched? Well hang on to your horses because that same peD will also allow our glob­al
traveler to access the Internet, watch movies, make online purchases, inventory the family 'fridge;
then reorder from afar. It will also function as a global positioning system as she moves from place
to place, and will even allow her to turn on the heat and lights at home upon landing.
Welcome to the telecommunications (telecom) industry in the year 2000! While
not all of the aforementioned features are fully functional as yet, many are here -
or near - at least in some regions. Think what you will about them, but the
experts say that all should substantially change the way people communicate
and work.
Europeans, for instance, had long been seasoned mobile telephony users,
but today they're embracing the Internet. Americans, who had long-lever­aged
fixed wireline and cable for telephone and Internet, are finally
roaming freely from coast to coast - and overseas - with a sin­gle
wireless. Japanese, who hadn't had much personal com­puter
access, are now going wild for the new Mobile
Internet. Mexicans, Brazilians and many others who
barely had telephone access, are now enjoying wide­spread
wireless and growing Internet access thanks to
privatization, the global telecom consolidation
trend, and new technology.
industry is all about the Mobile Internet,"
Masle '94, vice president of market-communications
for Ericsson, one of the
ications industry's leading companies.
about the 'three anys': any time, any place,
how."
ng to Masle, Finnish and Swedish youths
already sending several million text messages over
hand-helds each day. And in Japan, where per­computer
ownership rates are low, an unexpected
million people already use the new I-mode Mobile
access that's being offered by Japan-owned NIT.
"I personally expect to see more wireless than hard-wired
users within three years," he said.
"There are many different things one should look at when
54 / 1 / 2000 WWW.T - BIRD .E DU p .9
p . 1 0
talking about the Mobile Internet. Imagine that
you're driving down a remote and unfamiliar
road when something goes wrong with your
car. A registered wireless device that's embed­ded
in your car first runs a diagnostic program
to see if it can detect, then fix, the problem. If it
can't, it scans for nearby garages and sends out
a call for help, using its global positioning sys­tem
to transmit your exact location as well as its
analysis of what's wrong with your car. Or sup­pose
you're in an accident. Your personal
mobile device doesn't just call for an ambu­lance,
it also transmits your entire medical his­tory
to the team that is en route."
Masle said that people should also be able to
book airline reservations, download 'infotain­ment:
and shop using their mobiles. "Within
five years, I think we're going to see an alI-com­municative
world where people are going to be
able to control their communication access and
stay connected to the people who are impor­tant
to them - be they family or business col­leagues
- in the ways that they want to."
·Convergence is coming and it will revolu­tionize
the way we socialize and do business,
but voice is still the primary telecom need in
many parts of Asia and Latin America," added
Bjorn Kirchdorfer '87, vice president of a glob­al
customer team at Ericsson. "We're talking
regions and countries where there is still no
telephone access for a large portion of the pop-
WWW.T - BIRD . EDU
ulation - period," he said. "Imagine the eco­nomic
growth that will occur in China, for
instance, once farmers and families outside of
Beijing get communications access."
Kirchdorfer said that Sweden-based Ericsson
partners with telecom providers across the
globe to plan and deploy telecommunications
solutions for each market. "It isn't economical
to run copper wire throughout China, but the
good news is that with wireless, there's no need
to," he said. "Wireless allows emerging markets
to quickly play 'catch up' and 'leap frog' ahead
with technology in ways that would actually be
more difficult if they had to evolve from tradi­tional
fixed-wire technologies. " In basic terms,
that means giving people for whom modern
day communications was, at best, a luxury, reg­ular
phone access simply by installing repeater
towers throughout their countryside.
Brazil and Mexico, which have both priva­tized
their telecom industries in recent years,
have already begun experiencing that boom.
Whereas it used to take new Brazilian business­es
up to two years to get a fIXed-wire phone,
phone access today is more immediate. People
are simply using wireless until fIXed-wire catch­es
up. As a result, there are already more wire­less
than wired telecom users in Brazil and, as
the country is being wired, Brazilians are
exploding onto the Internet.
"Obviously, once voice access is established,
54 / I / 2000
our next challenge becomes one of getting peo­ple
connected to the Internet and addressing
their other data needs," Kirchdorfer said.
"Giving individuals immediate access to their
'stuff is what it's all about, regardless of loca­tion.
Beyond person-to-person and person-to­machine
communications, we also expect a sig­nificant
growth in machine-to-machine data
transactions - in the home as well as in the
commercial sector."
According to Kirchdorfer, industry experts
expect the number of worldwide wireless users
to surpass hard-wired ones by 2003, then keep
growing exponentially. Thus, the industry is
focused on delivering content over a wireless
network.
'Today, data is still significantly slower over
wireless than it is by wireline. That's why deliv­ering
high-speed voice and data over a wireless
environment is the next major inflection point
for society," he said. "Companies like Cisco
already receive up to 80 percent of their orders
online. Imagine what's going to happen to
world commerce once that small businessman
in China, or that Scandinavian reindeer meat
supplier, or that Venezuelan entrepreneur can
access world markets quickly and cost-effective­ly
right through their PCD."
Long a leader in mobile telephony, Europe is
already betting big on bandwidth since it is the
apparent key to content delivery. In fact, some
54/1/2000
countries are auctioning off bandwidth spec­trum
- and scoring big! Great Britain recently
received US$30 billion for the license to its
nationwide spectrum. Germany reportedly
received about US$40 bi llion for its license.
Given that 3G isn't even scheduled to go live
until 2001, in Spain, the partnerships that pur­chased
those licenses are enduring incredible
market entry costs and risks today in hopes of
high returns on those investments later on.
"Ericsson and our clients are investing heavi­ly
in new 3G, or third generation technology
that addresses speed and volume issues and
works across all of the world's network proto­cols,"
said Kirchdorfer.
In fact, globalization has totally become the
industry watchword. As people steadily become
more global in their communication needs,
they are absolutely demanding cross-border
synergies. As a result, telecom companies have
been forced into an aggressive expansion
mode, merging capital, equipment, technolo­gies,
and client pools. They've also been forced
to work together on 3G and other new tech­nologies.
WWW.T - BIRD .EDU
costs." Lillelund added that the next MEMS
switch will have a 1,024 by 1,024 mirror field
that will boost capacity 2s0-fold by 2005.
"We're also working on shooting streams of
light directly through the air and into homes
and buildings using non-damaging lasers -
which means that you might not even have to
wait for fiber optic cable to be installed."
Lillelund just participated in the first collabo­rative
video editing demonstration at the recent
digital Hollywood trade show, which connected
movie industry post-production facilities in
Beverly Hills, Calif., Toronto and New York City
for online editing. "People at all three sites were
seeing the same thing at the same time and
doing the actual editing online," he said.
"This technology will help the entertainment
industry significantly collapse development
times and costs, and has great potential for
other industries," he said. "In the pharmaceuti­cal
industry, for instance, it typically costs
US$700 million and takes 10 to 12 years to get
each drug through the FDA approval process.
We're talking truckloads and truckloads of
images, x-rays and other support­For
Mads Lillelund '87, vice
president of New Media at Lucent,
staying at the forefront of technol­ogy
is his full-time job. As such,
he works across borders and ven­dors
equally.
III
T'S ALL
ing documentation being
shipped back and forth between
labs, etc., that can be transmitted
online. With this system, regula­tors
can see, say, a brain tumor
that's been treated over a five-year
period and watch it as it actually
shrinks during a time-condensed
30-minute video. That's power­ful!
Or imagine auto designers at
DaimlerChrysler working online
ABOUT THE
'THREE ANYS':
"Technology is advancing so
quickly that optics and wireless
capacity is doubling every nine
months," said Lillelund. "To put
that in perspective, computer chip
capacity is only doubling every 18
ANY TIME, ANY
PLACE, AND
ANY HOW:'
months - which means that we have to get
content creators, developers, and service
providers to work together." Lillelund defined
'new media' as the 'Economy of Light: encom­passing
digital, broadband, and rich media.
''We're basically talking about everything you
and I will want as content: video-on-demand,
online entertainment, elearning - the list is
virtually endless."
Given that bandwidth is the Holy Grail for
content delivery and that fiber optics is today's
best source of it, fiber optics manufacturers
worldwide are working 24/7 in a headlong rush
to catch up to demand. But, innovation cer­tainly
isn't stopping there.
"We are already using new technologies like
Lucent's MEMS-based (Microelectromechanical
Systems) optical switches that transmit data by
light using 256 by 256 microscopic mirrors that
are placed on a single chip," he said. "And since
they're beaming light, not data - which have to
be converted into electronic impulses, then back
again - we can significantly increase transmis­sion
speeds which, in tum, reduce transmission
from both Strattsgart and Detroit
on a new car model, who can collapse the time
from concept to reality from three years to a few
months."
Advances such as these aren't science fiction,
according to Lillelund. He predicted that enter­tainment
industry executives would make and
save money using collaborative editing tech­niques
this year. He also said that Global Cross­ings
has already begun deploying MEMS chips
in some markets, and that laser channels are
currently being tested in four markets.
"New York's largest financial companies
already have this technology. I believe that
most businesses in major cities like New York
and London will be wired within five years and
that businesses in most of the world's metro­politan
areas will have it within 10," he said.
"Ultimately, we're looking to provide a link to
every single person and a light beam directly to
their PCD or desk. .. . Within five years? I think
it's safe to say that you will be communicating
and conducting business in a real-time, live­video
format, from just about any where and at
just about any time you want." •
p . I I
world of Bluetooth,
at work, at home, and every­where.
estimate that there will
be more than 1,000 Bluetooth-enabled
products on the market by 2004.
Bluetooth is a joint project of 3com,
Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft,
Motorola, Nokia and Toshiba, but nearly
all other companies are adapting its
standards. You can learn more by visiting
www.bluetooth.com.
Broadband (bandwidth) is the 'pipeline'
through which video and other increas­ingly
sophisticated forms of media wUI
be delivered to a mobile world.
'rich' media, as it is termed,
service (QoS) is a critical issue,
requires cooperation across
platforms, says Bradford
commercial director at Enron
Services who is in charge
demand technology.
more about the Ins ~
band, cable, flbe
_P._12 _________ ---l~~I~~~OI~;If--------------S-4/-1/-20-00
PRIVATIZATION
Every decade has a 'buzzword: and
in the 1990s it was definitely priva­tization.
Privatization was dearly
perceived as the cure-all for nations -
whether they were already developed or
still developing. This process - and pri­vatization
should be understood to be a
process - basically stood for the chang­ing
from complete government owner­ship
and control to something less than
that. Privatization is, therefore, a term
that covers a variety of outcomes: from
change of ownership to change of man­agement.
In each case, the government
ends up with less ownership or control
than it previously had.
Today privatization and deregulation
- which is its U.S. equivalent - is under
attack because end results have frequent­ly
not met expectations. To understand
why, one has to review the reasons why
governments seek to privatize in the first
place. There are three basic drivers for pri­vatization:
ideology, finance, and tech­nology
transfer.
Ideology played a major role in the pri­vatization
of government-owned enter­prises
in both Great Britain, under
Margaret Thatcher's leadership, and the
U.S. during Ronald Reagan's term.
Thatcher believed not only in limited
government, but also that privatization
would re-ignite England's entrepreneur­ial
spirit, and thus, end stagflation.
Reagan believed that government should
playa lesser role in people's lives. He also
believed that governments are never as
efficient as the private sector. These two
leaders sought privatization/deregulation
as a means of getting government out of
areas in which the private sector could better
operate.
In emerging nations, privatization allowed
governments to show their commitment to
reducing their own role while also creating a
more level playing field for the private sector.
After all, decades of government involvement in
the economy had not brought about significant
growth, so many government leaders no longer
subscribed to a 'dependency theory' that
absolved their countries from responsibility for
living standards. The World Bank and Inter­national
Monetary Fund were also factors in
these nations lessening the role of government
BY PROFESSOR SHOSHANA TANCER
in the economy. In the former Communist bloc
nations, which moved quickly towards privati­zation,
the primary motivation was to demon­strate
that they had indeed broken with the past.
Financial considerations also played an
important role in the choice to privatize.
Governments saw privatization as a way to
remove industries and/or sectors that were a
drain on their current budgets - as well as a
means for disengaging from activities that were
not competitive in world markets. Whereas
governments had previously accepted their role
as the 'employer of last resort' and the fact that
protected markets often led to lower quality of
goods, they began exammmg those
beliefs during the 1990s when globaliza­tion
and open access to markets became
the rule. They realized that productivity
and quality standards had to increase, but
that they could neither fire workers direct­ly
nor initiate and enforce necessary pro­ductivity
gains. Privatization was, there­fore,
their answer.
There were other financial benefits as
well. For one, privately owned companies
pay taxes - which increase revenues.
Governments could also receive an imme­diate
inflow of capital from the sale of
each business or asset. Such money could
be used - as it was in Mexico - to pay
down external debt, or used to create new
programs for which funds had not previ­ously
been available.
A third driver for privatization was the
potential for technology transfer. Through
privatization, countries could get modern
equipment and/or licenses and obtain
access to the latest processes. When
Mexico privatized TELMEX, it decided to
permit foreign as well as domestic owner­ship.
The government also solicited sig­nificant
ownership from two foreign tele­coms:
France Telecom and Southwestern
Bell (now SBC). At the time, France Tele­com
had the industry's most advanced
interactive system, Minitel, which provid­ed
consumers with access to restaurant
and airline information and reservations.
SBC, a U.S. company, had faced chal­lenges
similar to what awaited it in
Mexico - having provided service to
both major metropolises and vast geo­graphic
areas with low population densi­ty
in the U.S. As a result of this infusion of
cash and the latest technology and know-how,
TELMEX quickly became a significantly more
efficient telecom player.
Given Mexico's level of success, most nations
have now privatized - or are in the process of
privatizing - their telecom sector. Although
landline domestic service has frequently been
kept out of foreign hands, there is no dearth of
competition for buyers of mobile and cellular
licenses.
Privatization, however, is a process. It will fail
if there is a lack of planning and if the appro­priate
steps are not taken sequentially. Privatiza­tion
can, in fact, be an initial success in terms of
54 / ' / 2000
removing a government's financial burden, but
it can still fail in the longer term. For the initial
privatization to succeed, each country must con­duct
a careful study of its society. First they must
do an accurate assessment of the culture. Who
are the people? What is their level of education?
Their attitude toward work? Motivating factors?
Has capitalism ever existed? There are many
who contend that one of the reasons the
Russian privatization effort faltered was that the
nation jumped from feudalism to communism
and that the people had never experienced the
problems - as well as the benefits - which
arise from the economic risk-taking that is an
inherent element of capitalism.
There also has to be an existing institutional
framework for privatization efforts to succeed.
By that, I mean a legal framework that protects
creditors and debtors alike, and which permits
failing businesses to actual ly fail and dosure to
occur. There have to be capital markets and
financial institutions, so that there can be liq­uidity
in the share holdings, potential buyers
who can sell at will, and credit that is made
WWW.T - BIRD .E DU
will most likely be directly and indirectly
impacted by these efforts. The government must,
therefore, begin by determining how to maxi­mize
acceptance of the privatization by those in
government, by workers in the companies that
are to be privatized, by those who would be
competitors, and by the public at large.
In making lhese preparalions, the govern­ment
must develop a dear and comprehensive
plan for privatization. It must make sure that it
has legal authorizalion for such activity. In
some instances, governments have had their
constitutions amended to provide this certain­ty.
In other instances, new legislation and/or
the creation of a new agency may be sufficient.
The government then has to dearly define its
intentions. Is it going to privatize a sector or a
company? Is it going to transfer ownership or
transfer management? Are foreign entities or
individuals going to be permitted to participate
and, if so, to what extent? Once these issues
have been resolved on a policy level, the gov­ernment
must ensure that delegation of author­ity
is dear and specific, that funding exists, and
available to the new or reorgan­lhat
agency personnel believe
ized entities. Privatization also
requires a judicial system that is
recognized as fair, open, and
able to help resolve disputes on
a timely and equitable basis.
"T HE SOCIETY
in the new goals and can act
without government intet-
HAS TO TOLERATE vention.
Timetables and schedules
must be prepared and
adhered to. Goals must be
seen as credible. And the pub­lic
must be kept informed so
that charges of corruption are
unlikely to occur. People
must also recognize that every
DIFFERENCES AND
The society itself has to toler­ate
differences and be comfort­able
with dispute resolution
techniques. It is also useful if
there are non-governmental
organizations that can mediate
between the interests of specif­BE
COMFORTABLE
WITH DISPUTE
RESOLUTION
TECHNIQUES:'
privatization - even in a sin­gle
nation - is different. There is no such thing
as a cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-aH approach
to privatization. Each effort must be evaluated
and the method that is chosen must correspond
to the goals and objectives of the nation at the
time that privatization takes place.
ic groups and the government, much as envi­ronmental
groups in the United States speak on
behalf of a large number of individuals who
might otherwise not make an impact on gov­ernment
policy-making.
Finally, the government that is embarking on
or implementing privatization has to have
legitimacy and stability. A totalitarian govern­ment
or dictatorship may have short-term sta­bility
and be able to mandate privatization.
However once that administration ends, its acts
are frequently questioned and, sometimes,
overturned. A democracy, on the other hand,
has more difficulty in initially carrying out a
privatization effort because it needs the support
of the populace, but its efforts are more likely
to endure once implemented.
Canying out a privatization requires signifi­cant
research, a determination of the impact of
alternatives, and the creation of a coherent gov­ernment
policy framework. It is essential that
planned goals and objectives are dearly thought
through and articulated. The public must know
what the government hopes to achieve and who
Looking at privatizations over the past
decade, one readily sees that privatization for
the sake of privatization is not effective. Gov­ernments
have to recognize the role competi­tion
and regu lation play in a capitalistic setting.
Without competition, the restructured company
has little incentive to perform differently than it
did before. Even with competition, there is no
guarantee that the public will be better served if
effective regulations are not also put in place.
That is one reason we are now seeing a back­lash
against privatization in many countries -
like the Czech Republic - that had initially
been viewed as successful. Governments, how­ever,
are becoming ever-more-sophisticated at
understanding the ramifications of privatiza­tion
and are working to make them more suc­cessful
in the future. •
p . , 3
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
p.14 WWW.T- BIRD .EDU
MIMIA Distance Learning
Program Graduates First Class
BY LINDSEY MICHAELS
They were the first of a new breed ofT-bird grad­uates.
All reside in Mexico, have full-time jobs,
and now have joint degrees from Instituto
Tecnol6gico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey
(ITESM) and Thunderbird. There were 104 of them
and on June 30, they became the first graduates of the
new Masters of International Management for Latin
America (MIMLA) distance learning degree program.
"With MIMLA, students were able to get simultane­ous
degrees from two world dass universities," said
Bert Valencia, MIMLA director and an associate pro­fessor
of marketing at Thunderbird. "ITESM has the
top-ranked MBA program in Latin America, while
Thunderbird has the top-rated international program
in the U.S. Our students also get to stay at home, con­tinue
gaining work experience, and they don't have to
uproot their families."
The MIMLA program leverages distance learning
technology to link high potential Latin American exec­utives
with some of today's top teachers of global
skills and strategy. This two-year 'lock step' program
combines in-person and live, broadcast lectures with
the type of hands-on, real-company case analysis that
helps facilitate success in to day's global economy.
MIMLA students focus specifically on Latin Amer-
ICa s unique cultures and business needs and are
taught by professors from both schools. They also
learn from and network with their working peers -
who are located throughout Mexico and in Peru.
"Watching this graduation was one of the most
exciting professional experiences of my life," said Dr.
Tony Dieck-Assad, director, MIMLA program ITESM
and a professor of operations management. "I am very
proud of these executives; they have worked very hard.
And seeing all of them receiving their diplomas made
me very emotional." Despite the fact that all graduates
were from Mexico, more then 300 of their friends and
family members attended the graduation ceremony in
Glendale - which was also broadcast live to Mexico
for those who couldn't make the trip. Graduates even
got to speak with their Mexican-based loved ones dur­ing
the festivities.
The MIMLA degree is modeled after Thunderbird's
proven tripartite program, and combines courses in
international business, international studies, and
English Business Communications. It is particularly
well suited for students who want to continue gaining
work experience while obtaining leading edge skill
sets that apply directly to their current jobs. Students
begin by coming to Thunderbird for about 10 days,
54/1/2000
TOP MIMLA 2000 class president
Eugenio lee proudly addresses his
fellow graduates. ABOVE Dr. Tony
Dieck of ITESM and Dr. Bert
Valencia of Thunderbird nurture the
MIMLA program and partnership.
LEFT MIMLA students participate in
the Flag Parade. Their graduation
ceremony was broadcast live to
ITESM sites in Mexico where family
members who couldn't come to the
u.s. had gathered.
~E FACULTY ALONE IS A GUARANTEE OF A SUCCESSFUL MIMLA EXPERIENCE.
54/1/2000
during which time they meet
each other and their teachers,
and get acquainted with the tech­nology
they'll be using for the
next two years. Classes then meet
every other Friday afternoon and
Saturday at an ITESM site.
WWW.T - BIRD . EDU
According to Dieck, graduating
students rated MIMLA's program
content, methodology; and over­all
value quite highly - which
Incoming MIMLA 2002 class members cele­brate
at the Pub during the last night of their
lO-day Thunderbird orientation.
today," said Alejandro
Marti, a relationship manag­erwith
Citibank, Mexico. "As
MIMLA graduates, I believe
we have many advantages
that people graduating from
the on-campus program do
not have. Namely the work
experience that you don't
lose, the knowledge about
technology that you gain,
was especially important to ITESM given that half the
initial MIMLA class held ITESM undergraduate degrees.
Dieck also finds it significant that over 90 percent of all
MIMLA students who began the program completed it.
"It took a very forward thinking group to take the
risk of being the first MIMLA program class and I think
it pulled us all together," said Ruben Dari6 Trevino,
an operations director with Asista.com in Mexico.
"Both Thunderbird and ITESM have taken this endeav­or
very seriously and have appointed the best of their
teachers for the program. This is an opportunity that
no one should miss."
"My MIMLA degree gives me the best of both
worlds," said Eugenio Lee, class president for the
MIMLA 2000 graduates. "ITESM is the recognized
leader in MBA education in Mexico so everyone here
knows the value of my degree - whereas people in
Mexico who are not exposed to the global market may
not know Thunderbird. Outside of Mexico though, it's
the other way around. People may not know ITESM,
but they do know the value and reputation ofThun­derbird."
Lee works in the global sourcing department of
General Electric, where, he says, contacts and knowing
where to go for product and raw materials is critical.
"One of the greatest strengths of the MIMLA program
is the network you develop. There is such diversity in
your class, very experienced people who are all in dif­ferent
classes, of different ages, and working in differ­ent
companies. This is an opportunity you don't usu­ally
get in Mexico."
Lee added that he already knows that one of his
new bosses is from Thunderbird, as are a local co­worker,
a Brazilian co-worker, and one in the U.S.
"Knowing them and sharing a Thunderbird connec­tion
is very powerful to me," Lee said.
There is now one MIMLA student for approximate­ly
every six full-time Thunderbird students. They also
already account for more than one of every three
known alumni in Mexico. That means that the MIMLA
program will play an intricate role in rapidlyexpand­ing
Thunderbird's network and name recognition in
Mexico - as well as in Latin America - as the pro­gram
expands throughout the region.
"I think that everyone is satisfied with what we've
done in the past two years and what we're finishing
and access to some of the very best professors.
"I'm joining the Thunderbird Alumni Association
Latin America Council because I believe that as alum­ni
of Thunderbird, we still have to be involved in all
the activities that take place on-campus and off," said
Marti. "In Mexico for example, there are going to be
100 new alumni graduating each year from the
MIMLA program. That's an explosion of growth that
will eventually give Thunderbird a lot of presence in
this country and in other Latin American countries."
Given that ITESM operates 29 facilities in Mexico
and eight other Latin American countries, the MIMLA
partnership could - and should - expand exponen­tially.
The 2001 MIMLA class already includes students
who live in Peru and both ITESM's Dieck and Thun­derbird's
Valencia said they expect to continue adding
students from other countries to the MIMLA mix
shortly. "In our three years, we already have students
from Belize, BraziL Colombia, Germany, Mexico,
Panama, Peru, Spain, United States, and Venezuela.
"I expect next year to be a banner year," said Valen­cia.
"And by 2005, I hope to have the 20 or 30 best cor­porate
students in each of the largest 10 to 15 cities in
Latin America enrolled in our program. Just imagine
it," he continued. "Directors or vice presidents of
major corporations in five to seven countries working
together on group projects and opening doors for one
another throughout Latin America. That's the poten­tial
we're talking about here."
THE MIMLA PARTNERSHIP
Thunderbird and ITESM each bring unparalleled
strengths to the MIMLA program. Thunderbird has
been ranked number one in international business by
U.S. News and World Report for five consecutive years.
The School and its faculty are recognized experts in
global management education and have adapted the
MIMLA program to focus specifically on Latin Ameri­can
issues.
ITESM offers the number-one-ranked MBA program
in Latin America. It also has considerable expertise in
distance learning education - with a full vi rtual uni­versity
infrastructure at its disposal. The MIMLA pro­gram
leverages that expertise and technology to deliv­er
outstanding international programs and faculty
access to senior-level Latin American executives. _
THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY NO ONE SHOULD MISS:'- Ruben Dari6
p.15
MIMLA 2002 ARRIVES
One hundred fifteen students In the
Master of International Management
for Latin America (MIMLA) class of
2002 began their coursework on
August 11 with a lO-day Orientation
and leadership seminar on Thunder­bird's
Glendale campus. Ninety-three
men and 22 women comprise the
new MIMLA group. which represents
SIX nations including MeXICO. the
United States. Peru. Cuba. Canada
and Belize
The students attend their classes via
distance learning technology at seven
different campuses In Latin America.
Including six sites In MeXICO. and one
in Lima. Peru. Plans are In the works to
begin transmitting MIMLA courses to
sites In Buenos Aires. Argentina and
Santiago. Chile as soon as next year
MIMLA seeks the top students In
each target city. and ludglng from the
class of 2002. MIMLA has found
them The new students share an
average of five years of profeSSional
work experience: their average PAEP
(aptitude test In Mexico) scores put
them In the top qUintile of test-tak­ers:
and their computerIZed TOEFL
score average of 247 (eqUivalent to
597 on the paper TOEFL) proves the
group has excellent English language
skills. Many members of thiS new
crop of students work for top com­panies
such as ALAS (Aeromexlco).
IBM. HP. CEMEX. VITRO, and Proctor
and Gamble. "By pooling together
the best bUSiness students In Latin
America. we have a tremendously
rich environment for learning Inter­national
business." says MIMLA di rec­tor
Humberto ValenCia. "Look out for
several top CEOs and outstanding
entrepreneurs (from the MIMLA pro­gram)"
With the 117 students who are contin­uing
In the MIMLA 2001 program. this
enthUSiastic and promising group of
new students brings the total MIMLA
population to 232 for this year
They were the" original Thunderbirds, a hardy, driven bunch of predominantly men who
came to Thunderbird Field #1 for flight training before being sent to storm the unfriend­ly
skies of World War II. On October 12th, 55 former students and instructors brought
their friends and families to what might be the last, tri-annual 'Helmets and Goggles' Pilots
Reunion Weekend at the school that has carried on their traditions now for more than half a cen­tury.
For those of us who had the pleasure of spending time with them, they served as an unshak­able
reminder of just how genuine friendship and commitment can grow throughout the years.
54 / 1 / 2000
If you haven't already heard the
story, Thunderbird began as a u.s.
Army Air Force field nearly 60 years
ago - having been built purely on
patriotism and private funds. You see,
the u.s. Congress had refused to fund
the massive build-up of the airplanes,
airfields, and such that America, Great
Britain, and China needed for the war.
So a very determined General Hap
Arnold approached fellow patriots
such as Hollywood screen legends
Janet Gaynor, Jimmy Stewart, Henry
Fonda and Hoagy Carmichael, as well
as fellow visionaries Leland Hayward,
John Connelly and John Swope, for
some much-needed philanthropic
help. Without so much as a written
contract, those people coughed up
more than $1 million - in 1940's era
dollars - to build the base, which
opened on March 23, 1941, and
which helped over 16,000 U.S. Air
Corps Cadets learn how to fly through
war's end in 1945. But that was just
the beginning; the group had to keep
on investing - up to $25,000 a
month for aviation fuel alone - for a
year-and-one-half before Congress
finally appropriated funds.
The one-square-mile Thunderbird
airfield was, literally, carved out of the
Arizona desert, thanks to the unbeliev­able
generosity and unprecedented
vision of some undisputed patriots.
And so was Thunderbird the School.
With the 'war to end all wars' now
ended and millions of soldiers head­WWW.
T- BIRD . EDU
Student Binita Choksi from the u .S. was the f irst recipient of the
Butch Jackson Thunderbird Pilots Memorial Scholarship. Butch's son
Frank (left) and Gerry Oppenheimer challenged the pilots to keep
their legacy alive by building their scholarship into the biggest and
most prestigious fund at Thunderbird.
p . 1 7
preventing future wars. So Yount and
his band of devotees petitioned
Congress, bought the base on July 8,
1946, assembled a faculty, curriculum,
and student body, and began dasses at
the then American Institute of Foreign
Trade just three months later on
October 1.
Fifty-four years later, Thunderbird,
The American Graduate School of
International Management, has
remained true to its charter. The School
is still attracting pioneers, equipping
them with the language, culture, and
business skills they need to succeed on
global missions, then sending them
forth to help forge that ever-more-pres­ent
single world economy.
"The men and women who are here
this weekend represent us at our best.
They are a generation that was asked
to put off personal dreams and ambi­tions
for a greater, common purpose,"
said Dr. Roy A. Herberger, Jr., presi­dent
of Thunderbird. "It is an honor
for those of us at Thunderbird today
to host the 'Helmets & Goggles'
reunion ."
Pride and a deep-rooted sense of
kinship that time hasn't dimmed a bit
were evident all throughout the week­end
as old friends gathered, shared rev­elries,
and mourned friends they'd lost
along the route. This year's event
appeared especially marred by the
recent loss of Butch Jackson, an
instructor pilot, who had long been the
reunion's driving force. There was even
ing home, it was Thunderbird Field's commander, Lt. General Barton Kyle
Yount, who first envisioned a private business school. In the wake of the
World War's utter devastation, Yount believed that building global rela­tionships
and a worldwide economy offered mankind its greatest hope of
talk of this reunion being the pilots' last given Butch's death.
Yet, this remained a very honored and upbeat group. Having honored
their fallen leader by creating the Butch Jackson Thunderbird Pilots
Scholarship, they seemed pleased to meet Binita Choksi, the American
LEFT British and u .S. pilot pro­gram
instructor Don Posser was
profoundly moved by his experi­ences
at Thunderbird. All five
living members of his six mem­ber
instructor team came to the
reunion. CENTER Squire Storrs
says that Thunderbird Field's
commander, Gen. Barton Kyle
Yount, would be very proud of
what Thunderbird the School
has become today. RIGHT Norb
Lypps is still being kidded about
the student pilot who bounced
out of the cockpit and wound
up clinging onto the plane's tail
section for dear life.
p . I 8 WWW.T- BIRD . EDU 54/1/2000
student who was the scholarship's first recipient. They also met Butch's
son Frank. who expressed his heartfelt thanks on behalf of his family.
Gerry Oppenheimer then asked the pilots to create a truly lasting legacy
by helping to make their scholarship the largest one at Thunderbird.
Highlights of the Year 2000 'Helmets & Goggles' Reunion included
dinners with Thunderbird's Board of Trustees and current students, a
special John Swope Bombs
Away photo exhibition, and
a tour of Luke Air Force base
and Falcon Field - where
the pilots had also trained.
While Luke's sleek. modem
fleet of F-1G fighter jets cer­tainly
held some appeal for
the aviators, it was at Falcon
Field's Champlin Fighter
Museum in Mesa that the
pilots really came alive.
They dined surrounded by
nostalgic planes then made
their way outside to where a
Stearman PT-17 biplane -
like the one they'd f1own­had
just landed and stood
awaiting their inspection.
That plane triggered
memories.
dent pilot of his who wound up hanging outside the plane. "We were
coming into the traffic pattern at about 500 feet and he had to roll into a
90 degree tum for home," Lypps said. "Well, when he pushed in on the
stick, it jerked and he went right out of his seat because he'd forgotten to
fasten his safety belt. He wound up with his parachute braced against the
tail fin and clinging on for life." Lypps said he quickly climbed to 3,000
feet and told the student to
clamber in, reminding him
that the added height
would provide ample time
for his parachute to deploy
if he failed. "I don't know
how, but he made it in,"
Lypps said, adding with a
malicious pilot's grin, "and
we never even scratched the
plane."
Don Prosser, the distin­guished
flight commander
of both the advanced and
British training programs,
lovingly inspected the cock­pit
of his old friend, then
Gerry Oppenheimer gives a 'thumbs-up' from one of his favorite places - inside the cockpit
of a Stearman PT-17 biplane like the one he flew at Thunderbird. Oppenheimer was one of
the main 'unsung heroes' who helped make this year's 'Helmets & Goggles' pilots reunion a
reality. PHOTO BELOW Fighter Gunner, Arizona, 1942
"1 have over 17,000
hours of flying time in a
Stearman plane," said
Squire Storrs, the sen ior­most
of the pilot instruc­tors
at age 90, who also
doubled as base barber. "I
was here from the day
Thunderbird Field opened
in March of 1941 until the
day it closed in '45. I'm
proud to say that 1 got to
know General Yount quite
well during that time and
I've got to tell you that
from what I've seen of
proudly posed with all five surviving members of his six-person flight
instructor team. To those of us left watching. it was like seeing seasoned
warriors time-warped back into their glorious twenties.
"We were only here in Arizona for four precious years of our lives, from
'41 to '45, but those years left an indelible impression upon our lives that
is still very much here with all of us today," he said as his eyes welled up
with tears. "I still get very emotional." Prosser, who, like many of the
instructors, remained active in aviation throughout his life, remembered
one terrible storm that blew through Falcon Field, ripping row after row
of planes from their moorings and leaving 35 of them piled three-deep in
the adjacent citrus grove. He also spoke softly of the single cadet pilot he
lost during flight training more than 50 years ago, and you somehow
understand that for this tall and stately man, who was raised long before
random violence reigned, respect for
human life remains forever resolute.
But, there were funny stories too. Norb
Lypps was still being kidded about the stu-
Thunderbird this weekend, I think he would still very much approve."
We hope so. Thunderbird is one of the world's leading graduate busi­ness
schools, having been recognized by US News & World Report as the
number one school for international management during each of the
last five years. The School has already helped 32,000 alumni take flight
for challenging international careers with 12,000 companies in 135
countries. Approximately 1,500 new students from 70-plus countries
enter its gate each year with new dreams of their own.
Just like their financi ally-challenged Thunderbird Field forefathers,
Thunderbird's current school officials are now seeking out some modem
patriots who can help fund the facility, faculty, and other program
improvements currently needed to ensure that Thunderbird retains its
Top Gun title. •
TO LEARN MORE ABOlIf Thunderbird's history or to become part of its
financial future, please contact Laurel Kimball, assistant vice president of
individual giving. at kimballl@t-bird.edu (G02) 978-7309 .
"THANK YOU FOR PERPETUATING THE NAME 'THUNDERBIRD: FROM THE TIME
THE SCHOOL WAS FOUNDED, IT WAS THE SYMBOL OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
EMBRACING THE AREAS OF HIGHLY SPECIALIZED TRAINING-FLIGHT TRAINING­TO
FULFILL THE NEED FOR WARTIME PREPAREDNESS. NOW, YOUR ENDEAVOR IS
PROVIDING THE WORLD WITH HIGHLY SKILLED AND TRAINED PEOPLE IN THE
AREA OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT:'
-EDGAR MATTSON, PILOT, IN A POST-EVENT LETTER TO DR. HERBERGER
LE
T hey met at Thunderbird,
have lived and traveled the
world together, and believe
that both their daughters might follow
them to Thunderbird. They are Bob
'79 and Melanie '80 Franko and they
are long-time financial supporters of
Thunderbird .
"First and foremost, Thunderbird
holds special meaning to me because I
met my wife there," said Bob Franko,
who founded and runs the California­based
Generations Trust Bank. "But
beyond that, everything I've been able
to accomplish has been as a result of
my education, particularly my experi­ence
at Thunderbird. It was a very
unique educational experience."
The Frankos have both lived and
worked overseas. Bob has served as the
BECOME A LEADERSHIP DONOR
To invest in Thunderbird:
• Give online at Thunderbird's secure
https://secure.t-bird.edu/gift Web site.
• Print the online form and fax it to
(602) 978-8238.
• Use the return envelope in this magazine.
For more information or to give by
phone. contact
• Office of Individual Giving (800) 457-6981
(U.S. only), (602) 978-7309, or via email
at mygift@t-bird.edu
• Office of Corporate and Foundation
Relations (800) 457-6957 (U.S. only),
(602) 978-7641, or via email at
cfr@t-birdedu
s p
chief financial officer
and chief executive
officer at several
banks and invest-ment
companies.
Melanie has worked
extensively in private
investing, initially
with Citibank and
then Security Pacific
Bank, more recently
with high net worth
families.
ratt
"I've found
Thunderbird to be a
... Anne-Marie, Melanie '80, Caroline, and Bob Franko '79
passport to a whole new world of
possibilities," said Melanie. "To new
Bob and Melanie Franko and their
Franko Family Foundation have long
been leadership annual donors to
jobs, to a new per-spective
on every job,
to every new person
that I meet. Bob and I
are working very hard
to ensure that our
daughters have some
of the experiences
we both had at
Thunderbird - but
Thunderbird.
They've consistently
donated each year
during the School's
annual Thunderbird
Fund campaign,
earning them
President's Council
Benefactor stature.
JJI've found
Thunderbird
to be a passport
to a whole
new world of
possibilities. "
"We've always
believed in charitable giving," said
Bob. "Now that we have the girls,
much earlier in their young lives."
Both of the Franko children attend
the highly respected Lycee Fran<;:ais de
Los Angeles where they are receiving
a bilingual education. "We think that
is important. We're definitely doing
everything we can to put them on
a track that could take them to
Thunderbird," Melanie said.
we're especially interested in seeing
Thunderbird's continual strides toward
excellence." Bob has also recently
joined the Thunderbird Global
Council, where he will help direct
the School's strategy.
p . 2 0 WWW.T-BIRD .EDU 54/1/2000
CAREER FAIR 2000
World's leading companies meet
world's leading talent
More than 70 ·
companies
came calling.
There were so many, in
fact, that Thunderbird's
Career Management
Center (CMC) rented out
a nearby hotel's confer­ence
and tradeshow turf
- and space was still at a
premium. Some compa­nies
came early to do
information sessions.
Others simply came for
the three-day event,
staffed tradeshow booths,
and interviewed both
pre-selected candidates
and strong walk-ins.
Consider it a Thunder-bird-
exdusive Career Fair, where the world's leading
companies came looking for some of the worlds' lead­ing
talent for jobs that spanned nearly every geo­graphic
region and business function. And where 700-
plus of Thunderbird's current 1,300 Master of Inter­national
Management (MIM) candidates went look­ing
for that perfect fit.
"ProFit (Thunderbird's Career Management data­base
software system) processed over 11,000 job appli­cations
during Career Fair week. That's about one­third
of what we used to process during an entire year,
and it indudes 1,300 applications that we handled
during one single crazy hour preceding the event,"
said Joe McVicker '98, director of application devel­opment
at Thunderbird.
"This was the best run Career Fair of any that I've
attended in the nation," said Richard Davenport of
Alltel, who was hiring for his leadership development
program. "The organization prior to the event was
outstanding, as was everything once we got here.
Having students assigned as corporate liaisons was
also espedally helpful - an excellent idea."
"Student liaisons were a direct connection between
each company and CMC," said Kay Keck, vice presi­dent
for professional and career development at Thun­derbird.
"If a company had any need, from technical
help with a PowerPoint presentation, to arranging a
quick interview with a walk-in candidate, to 'Hey,
could I get some bottled water in my booth?; the
liaisons were there for them," she said.
BY LINDSEY MICHAELS
TOP Texaco was one of more than 70
companies recruiting at this year's
Fair. ABOVE Peter Petrik (left) was one
of the student liaisons charged with
aiding each company. Thunderbird's
lindsey Korell (right) helped drive
the Fair's success. BOTTOM Intel
looks for the best and the brightest
among Career Fair participants.
Keck said that this
year's Fair was especially
successful from both the
employers' and students'
points of view. "Many of
the employers told me
that they really liked the
three-day format of com­pany
presentations,
booths, then interviews,"
she said. "They didn't
have to spread things out
and travel back to
Glendale. Companies
like Texaco and Hilti also
said that they felt they
got much more exposure
at the Fair itself then they
would have if they had
just done information
sessions. They got to talk to students who may not
have made it to their sessions, and that added contact
led to some very good interviews."
"Bristol-Myers Squibb attended the Thunderbird
Career Fair to introduce our organization to Thunder­birds
and engage the students in conversation about
their career interests, our company, and the opportu­nities
we have available worldwide," said Michele
Marmet, a recruiter with Bristol-Myers Squibb. "The
Career Fair exceeded our expectations with terrific
attendance and lots of interest from graduating T-birds
as well as students looking for internship opportuni­ties.
Bristol-Myers Squibb will definitely be back in
February to recruit for summer internships in our
global strategy group."
According to Keck, this year's Fair was organized pri­marily
by Lindsey Korell, an assistant director at the
CMC, who along with David Martin, Laura Hinau, and
the entire CMC staff. did a terrific job of planning,
marketing, and managing this year's event. "We had 29
companies here two years ago, 48 last year, and we
actually had to cut off registration at 70-something this
year because we just didn't have room for more," said
Keck. "That's a real tribute to the job our people did in
getting out the word that this Fair was an excellent
place for employers to find not just globally-minded
leaders with great skill sets, but ones who have already
lived and worked abroad for years as well."
"We're interviewing for 20-25 corporate finance
positions and have found this to be a really good for-
54 / 1/ 20 0 0
mat," said Tracy Barclay with Bank of
America. "Thunderbird offers a great tal­ent
pool, a well-rounded curriculum,
and well-rounded individuals who have
great interpersonal skills and who learn
as much about diversity outside of class
as they do inside," she said. 'i-birds just
have a really good balance of qualitative
and quantitative skills."
"I heard a lot of good things from the
recruiters," said Peter Petrik, a Slovakian
ebusiness student who worked as an
IOMEGA liaison. Petrik got eight inter­views
with six companies. "They talked
about the high quality of our students,
the organization, and were impressed by the sheer
number of students who stopped by their booths to
talk. They also got to experience something at the din­ner
that they will never experience at any other busi­ness
school - the Global Sounds talent presentations
- which really seemed to open their eyes to just how
diversified and unique our students are," he said.
Global Sounds is a very high quality student-organ­ized
talent show that is held twice each year at
Thunderbird. Six acts gave preview performances dur­ing
the Career Fair, and included an operatic duet, an
a cappella rendition of Summertime, classical guitar,
and a piano concerto. Those acts noticeably blew the
audience away!
Petrik said he also heard a great many positive com­ments
from students. "The most common one was
that this Career Fair was far superior to any they have
ever seen at Thunderbird. They also felt that they had
more opportunities to interact with employers this
time around. At the reception at the Pavilion, at the
WWW.T- BIRD . EDU
TOP Richard Davenport of Alltel
called the Fair the best-run in the
nation. ABOVE Student Ifeoma
Onmughalu wows employers during
a Global Sounds performance. BOT­TOM
An American Express recruiter
talks to students about London­based
opportunities.
p . 21
information sessions, at the booths. They
got to learn more about companies they
hadn't known anything about, and in
many cases talked about positions that
recruiters hadn't posted.
"For new students, this was a chance to
see a lot of different types of companies
in a very short amount of time that they
can now spend the next year interning
with and learning more about. For older
students, it was an opportunity to focus
their job search and get serious about
finding that right job."
Employers posted 160 positions and
interviewed 1,100 students during the
Fair. In talking to the students, many also found can­didates
for full-time and internship positions they
hadn't thought to post.
In addition to the Fall Career Fair, Thunderbird also
hosts a major Internship Fair each Spring. This year's
event is scheduled for February 21-23, 2001 and
employers may contact Chas Brennan at brennanc@t­bird.
edu or (602) 978-7981 for details. Internships are
incredibly popular at Thunderbird - with students
and employers who view them as an excellent oppor­tunity
to gain valuable work experience and to check
each other out. Thunderbird interns are available for
three- to nine-month project-oriented assignments
beginning in roughly January, June, and September of
each year.
Nearly 450 T-bird students from 43 countries did
formal internships in 20-plus countries during the last
12 months. Roughly 40 percent of them received on­the-
spot full-time job offers from the companies they
interned with. •
p. 2 2
TOP Dr. Yahia Zoubir, director of the
French-Geneva Center, leads a class
of eager students in one of the
Center's most beautiful classrooms.
BELOW Rodolfo Bay of Spain says
that studying in Archamps gave him
the opportunity to "get to know my
continent better from its heart,
Geneva."
WWW.T-BIRD.EDU 54/1/2000
BONJOUR et BIENVENUE
The Thunderbird Europe French-Geneva Center expands
and begins admitting full-time students
BY LINDSEY MI CHAELS
Nestled just outside Geneva near the French
town of Archamps, Thunderbird Europe's
French-Geneva Center has long attracted stu­dents
wanting a trimester-long European immersion
experience. Now, for the first time in its eight-year his­tory,
the Center is expanding to receive incoming stu­dents
who can spend one, two or three of their four
Thunderbird trimesters in Europe as they pursue their
Masters of International Management (MIM) degree.
"Beginning in Fall 20m, qualified applicants from
Europe and elsewhere will be offered the opportunity
to begin their Thunderbird experience at the Thunder­bird
Europe French-Geneva Center," said Dr. Earl Gib­bons,
assodate vice president of overseas programs at
Thunderbird. "Since the Center is strategically located
near many Geneva-based multinational companies,
finandal institutions, and international organiza­tions,"
Gibbons said, "Thunderbird's new European
admissions program will provide students with a
unique, hands-on opportunity to study Europe's rapid­ly
changing business climate as well as to pursue Euro­pean
internships and post-graduation jobs."
The French-Geneva Center's format and curriculum
will exactly mirror that being offered at Thunderbird's
main campus in the U.S., right down to the two-week
Foundations for Global Leadership orientation course
that all students take upon arriving at Thunderbird.
Students will also proceed through their Flexi-Core
program in cohort groups - just like their Glendale,
Arizona counterparts. Flexi-Core courses are common,
sequenced, and non-waivable courses that all Thun­derbird
students must now take during their first two
trimesters. Students can then take internships or begin
branching into their areas of spedalty.
"As the premier school in international management
education, Thunderbird sees its mission and its market
54 / 1 / 2000
as global," said Roy A. Herberger, Jr. president ofThun­derbird.
"The decision to expand Thunderbird Europe's
French-Geneva Center allows the School to better serve
the strategically important European market. The
build-out of the French-Geneva facilities will also pro­vide
the platform for expanding Thunderbird's Euro­pean
activities and diversifying its product offerings."
Herberger added that the expansion, which includes
construction of a new 15,000 square foot classroom
and office complex facility, also allows the School to
offer its Executive Master of International Management
(EMIM) degree program in Archamps, as well as to
make the school's renowned short-term Executive
training programs more easily accessible to European­based
corporate customers. "The new Center will be
home to Academic Affairs' European MIM Admissions
program, Executive Education, alumni life-long learn­ing
initiatives, and numerous other activities that were
previously only available in Glendale," he said.
Word of the expansion was received enthusiastical­ly
by current students and alumni who had experi­enced
Archamps.
"In my life there will always be a time before
Archamps and the one after," said Rodolfo Bay, a
Spaniard who was one of 104 French-Geneva Center
students last summer. "Not only did I get to learn
from some of the School's best teachers, I also had
time to get to know my continent better from its heart,
Geneva. The program also gave us ample time to dis­cover
the continent's new eastern frontier, with all of
its opportunities and challenges, and to get together
with very friendly and interesting people from
throughout the world," Bay said. "To me and many
others, that time will always be one of the most special
of my life and the names Prague, Marseilles, Venice,
Split and Mallorca will always have special meaning."
"As more and more companies expand globally,
they need managers who not only possess excellent
business skills, but who also possess an in-depth
understanding of various cultures and the ability to
speak several languages," said Natalia Kremer, a
Russian student with six years of Silicon Valley,
California work experience who is fluent in Russian,
English, and French. "The Archamps experience is
invaluable because it allows students to live and learn
in a highly international environment where they
experience cross cultural communications and negoti­ations
every day first hand. It also provides students
with regular access to the United Nations' impressive
library in Geneva for group and research projects."
"Thunderbird Europe's French-Geneva Center offers
students an unparalleled opportunity to study inter­national
business in a small, intimate setting while
simultaneously exploring Europe and experiencing
the ebbs and flows of its daily life," said Dr. Yahia
Zoubir, director of the French-Geneva Center. "I'm
extremely proud of our faculty, this expanded facility,
and the overall MIM and Executive programs we can
now offer at Archamps, and I invite you to join us.
Coming here will truly change your life."
Thunderbird Europe students typically either live in
WWW.T - BIRD . EDU
student housing in a nearby mall that is part of the Site
d'Archamps business complex, or else they live right in
the nearby town of Gaillard, which is on the French/
Swiss border near the coveted tram line. They pay the
same tuition as their Glendale counterparts and can
pursue French, Spanish, and German up through the
third of the four required levels - or Business English
- directly at Archamps. While Thunderbird Europe
students are required to complete a minimum of 21
credit hours in Glendale, those credits may be earned
in combination with credit-bearing internships, Win­terims,
and Interims. _
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT becoming part of Thunderbird's
first French-Geneva Center class, please contact Cynthia
Zoubir, Thunderbird's European
admissions representative, at
+33.450.31.56.63 or Zoubirc@t­bird.
edu or Thunderbird's Glen­dale-
based dean of admissions,
Judy Johnson, at (602) 978-7596
or 10hnsonj@t-bird.edu
p . 2 3
TOP Thunderbird is adding a 15,000
sq.-ft classroom and office facility
to the site. LEFT The French-Geneva
Center affords students the oppor­tunity
to practice what they've
learned during frequent outings
throughout Europe. RIGHT Natalia
Kremer of Russia frequents the
United Nations' famed library in
Geneva for research and relaxation.
BOTTOM Leandro Finol of Venezuela
enjoys studying on the shores of
Lake Geneva.
p . 2 4 EYES AROUND 54 / 1/ 2000
THE WORLD
NO RES I RlcriONS
Alumnae share viewpoints on international business
from the female executive's perspective
No Restrictions. It's not just the new branding
concept developed by alumna Judy Vlastnik
'78 and her team for Dockers Europe, a divi­sion
of Levi-Strauss & Company. It's also the attitude
that landed her the title of brand president for Levi's
Dockers, Europe - and the personal mantra of two
other alumnae who have found great success in the
world of international business.
Vlastnik's branding campaign centers around the
non-restrictive and uninhibited characteristics associ­ated
with Dockers ... featuring a series of advertise­ments
that portray people doing things they wouldn't
normally do - a group of men walking across a busy
city street with a canoe atop their heads .. . a man who
has pitched a stylized tent amidst a city landscape ...
The message - that Dockers ignite impulse and
produce a sense of confidence - and the ad campaign
itself are mirror images of the way Vlastnik, and alum­nae
Olga Reisler '78 and Charlotte Kennedy-Taka­hashi
'76 have tackled the world of international busi­ness
... with gusto, enthusiasm and no restrictions
whatsoever.
Reisler, the regional vice president of Nissan North
America, northwest region in Pleasanton, Calif. says that
companies look for the best person to do the job -
male or female - even in the traditionally male-orient­ed
automotive industry. 'The fact is that you are respon­sible
to the stockholder, and whoever beefs up your bot­tom
line is the one to hire." Today's companies, she
says, recognize this and aren't concerned with gender.
One of seven regional vice presidents throughout
the United States, Reisler is the direct link between the
dealer network and the Japan-based Nissan corpora­tion,
supervising the parts, sales, service, consumer
affairs, marketing and advertising for her region.
Under her leadership, the Northwestern Region has
become one of the fastest growing areas of the U.S.
automotive market.
"The automotive industry is a wide open field," she
said. "And, there is not one specific area that is more
suited to women than another - our service depart­ments
employ more women than ever and we have
more women in the dealer industry, too - in particu­lar,
the luxury car industry. Women have found that
this is a lucrative profession."
Vlastnik, who is responsible for supervising the cre­ative,
mens and women's brand, and retail marketing
aspects of Dockers, has also seen a shift in employ­ment
demographics. She notes that her senior man­agement
team includes female executives heading the
sales, legal, and human resources departments. "I
BY MELISSA CRYTZER FRY
think there is more of a tendency for companies to
hire women for senior positions today," she said.
"Women have a good track record and have proven
that they can hold such positions." She also attributes
this shift to each woman's instinctive drive to achieve
everything her male counterpart does in the business
world - a drive that is equally as strong in her today
as it was 10 years ago.
Kennedy-Takahashi's experience has been similar in
Japan. "Being a foreign female was actually a tremen­dous
benefit," said the founder and president of Oak
Associates, a human resource company in Tokyo
which is now expanding into the United States. The
Japanese people, she explained, have an admiration
for individuals who are well-educated and who work
hard. Indeed, her work ethic has been witnessed in the
business sector where she trains thousands ofJapanese
citizens for overseas assignments, dispatches interna­tional
employees to all reaches of the world, and
works with 12-15 nationalists on any given day. She
has also been recognized in the political arena where
she launched a campaign with the United States gov­ernment
to assist in Japanese labor union reforms.
"As a foreigner, I was a special creature and was able
to call and speak directly with presidents of companies
because I was unique - a female with an MBA, foreign
and a business owner," Kennedy-Takahashi said.
Reisler recalls a similar experience. ") had the advan­tage
of enlightened bosses, " she explained, "who
spoke with a lot of men with names like Dave, Joe and
Tom. The Daves and Joes had to do a lot to distinguish
themselves, but, with a name like Olga - and being a
female - ) was remembered."
Vlastnik, too, who was employed by Estee Lauder
after earning her MIM, found gender to be an advan­tage
while working in the Middle East - an area
stereotyped as providing few opportunities for
women. She explained that a typical business practice
in the Middle East was for distributors of beauty prod­ucts
to invite all competitors to one room where each
shared his/her product. "I was the only woman, and it
was customary for Estee to be introduced after the
Lanc6mes and Pierre Cardins," she said. Instinctively,
though, she was able to secure her own private con­sultations
by requesting a "less threatening environ­ment"
that excluded her male competitors. "My com­petitors
knew what I was doing and joked with me
about it when we would get together afterwards, but
they knew it was all part of selling the product."
Women who are anticipating careers in internation­al
business can take note from these distinguished
54 / 1/ 2000 WWW.T-B IRD .E DU p . 2 5
female executives - that attitude is everything. "You
are judged on your merits, what you deliver and what
you bring to the company," said Vlastnik. "I would
never approach an employment situation expecting
anything less."
TRENDS IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
"In my area of Tokyo, there are 7,000 women busi­ness
owners," said Kennedy-Takahashi. "They own
mostly small fashion shops, but the trend I'm seeing is
that more Japanese women are earning an education
that will support business activities in all areas - many
are getting their MBAs and more female tax account­ants
are coming through the education system. Within
the next five to 10 years, I foresee more Japanese being
armed with the right education to do business."
Kennedy-Takahashi feels that highly technical roles
are the most accepted for women to enter in Japan
because it is easier for them to demonstrate what their
competencies are - for example, tax accountants and
lawyers can demonstrate their success in quantifiable
terms. "The soft areas of marketing and PR are harder
to demonstrate competence in, and aren't as accepted
for women."
The reverse appears to be true in Europe, according to
Vlastnik, who notes that women tend to land positions
in brand marketing and human resources. She observes,
however, that women are much more selective in the
types of branding opportunities they pursue. "Women
are more inclined to work with a product they like,
while men are more driven by the content of the job."
"One trend I see," said Reisler, "is that the Internet
has been the great equalizer of us all - domestically,
internationally, ethnically and from a gender perspec­tive."
With dot-com companies and the advancement
of computer usage, business transactions and employ­ment
opportunities have been conducted so lely
through technology, which doesn't recognize gender,
race or culture.
"In the automotive industry, we are also hiring peo­ple
from other industries into ours so we can broaden
our reach to the consumer," she emphasized. "It's
about finding the best talent out there to get the job
done."
Reisler adds that a challenge for women in the auto­motive
industry in the past has resulted from the
industry's culture which frequently moved employees
from one city to another. "As women developed a
home life, they weren't willing to uproot their fami­lies,
and self-eliminated themselves from upper-level
positions." Today, Reisler says this is less of a problem
and has, herself, been offered the opportunity to
accept an international assignment. "It's not unlikely
that I would go overseas," she said.
Perhaps the greatest advice, articulated by Kennedy­Takahashi,
but intimated by all, was to "truly believe
that everyone is equal and that each person brings
something to the table. Having an open mind is what
being international is all about - and it's something
that Thunderbirds have truly achieved - regardless of
gender or ethnicity." •
p . 2 G WWW.T -B IRD .EDU
Colombian President Andres Pastrana
addresses Miami Herald Conference
Andres Pastrana's arrival sparked a media
frenzy as journalists jockeyed for shots
and interviews. The Colombian presi­dent
was welcomed privately by Bud Robyn,
senior vice president of Executive Education at
Thunderbird, and Alberto Ibargiien, publisher
and chairman of The Miami Herald, before
being ushered into a sell-out luncheon during
the final day of the Americas Conference. There,
he moved easily and informally towards the
dais where he was greeted by dozens of well
wishers and, eventually, seated next to the U.S.
general in charge of Southern Hemisphere
forces. Despite the 100 or so protesters who had
gathered outside of the beautiful Biltmore
Hotel in Miami, Pastrana had less visible secu­rity
than did then-Argentinean President Carlos
Menem last year. He also appeared amazingly
relaxed and jovial.
Pastrana's visit and speech were arranged by
T-bird alumnus Luis Moreno '77, who is the
current Ambassador of Colombia to the United
States and based in Washington, D.C.
"For starters, Colombia is not in the midst of
a Civil War," Pastrana stressed. Saying that he
doesn't consider his country to be divided, he
maintained that while the guerillas have defi­nitely
gained in military strength, they have lost
all but 3 or 4 percent of the popular support.
"The guerillas cannot overthrow our democra­cy,"
Pastrana emphasized. "In fact, we would
already be a nation at peace if it weren't for the
obscene profits of the drug industry."
The soft-spoken Pastrana outlined his "Plan
Colombia," a three-year, US$ 7.5 billion pro­gram
that will focus three quarters of its
resources on social, rather than military, issues.
Approximately $4.5 billion of the money
required for that plan will be provided by
Colombia and $1.3 billion by the U.S.
According to the Colombian President, the rest
will come in the form of loans and credits -
hopefully, from the European Union, which
Pastrana said he hoped would help him more.
Pastrana pointed to President Clinton's
recent visit to Colombia as a positive sign but
added that without greater U.S. investment and
trade, his country's rebound will be slower. The
U.S. is Colombia's leading trade partner.
According to Pastrana, 48 percent of Colombia's
exports go to the U.S. Half of its imports also
come from the U.S. •
54/1/2000
LEFT Thunderbird's Bud Robyn welcomes Presi­dent
Pastrana on behalf of Thunderbird, which
was a major Americas Conference sponsor.
ABOVE Myra Garcia was one of many staffers
who answered questions at Thunderbird's trade
booth. BELOW Chapter leaders like Argentina's
Gustavo Gurgulino de Souza '92 attended a spe­cial
T-bird workshop.
ABOVE Brazil's John Mein '70 meets Colombia's
Alejandro Espinal '95 during the T-bird spon­sored
dinner. BELOW Recent MIMLA graduate
Alejandro Marti '00 attends his first TAA Latin
America Council board function.
IICOLOMBIA IS NOT IN THE MIDST OF A CIVIL WAR .... WE WOULD ALREADY BE A
54 / 1 / 2000
KEY SPEAKER POINTS
If trade growth with Mexico continues
at the same rate, U.s. trade with Mexico will
surpass its total trade with all European
Union community members
and Asia within 10 years.
•
Twenty-eight percent of Brazil's exports now
go to Europe. South America is
second. The U.S. is third.
•
The U.S. invests more in Brazil than in any
other emerging market, including China.
It now invests 50 percent more in Brazil than
it does in Mexico.
•
Mexico has the lowest telephone per
capita density of all Latin American
countries.
•
The wholesale market for cable in
Latin America should reach $3 billion by
year-end 200t
•
Telecom is the single biuest driver of
growth in Latin America.
•
The average AOL Latin America customer
spends 30 minutes per day online.
•
Approximately one-third of Coca-COla's
worldwide sales are in Latin America.
The company's per capita sales rate is higher
in Mexico than in the U.S. and is highest in
Mexico City.
•
Latin American tax and labor laws can
make doing business difficult, but the region
has a great deal to offer companies that do
the work.
•
Ninety percent of businesses in Latin
America are small businesses. Internet
proliferation could playa significant role in
sparking economic growth by helping these
companies find suppliers and
customers more cost-effectively.
WWW.T-BIRD . EDU p. 2 7
Thunderbird Both Contributes to and Benefits
from Recent Miami Herald Americas Conference
Latin American politics and business issues,
attracting keynote speakers such as Colom­bian
President Andres Pastrana; Domingo
Cavallo, Argentina's Former Minister of
Economy; Luis Lauredo, U.S. Ambassador to the
Organization of American States; and Alejandro
Toledo, Peru's charismatic presidential candi­date.
It is The Miami Herald's annual Americas
Conference - which is held in partrJership with
Thunderbird. This year's conference was held
September 14 and 15 and attracted 500 atten­dees,
dozens of business leaders, and much of
the world's Latin America-focused media.
Now in its fourth year, the Americas Confer­ence
is considered a 'must attend' event for
many of those involved in business in Latin
America. It is also a critical marketing event for
Thunderbird - which can thank T-bird alum­nus
Willie Cone '79, general manager of The
Miami Herald, for the opportunity. The School
promotes the event, offers its alumni a signifi­cantly
discounted program rate, and provides
high level speakers. Thunderbird, in tum, gains
a tremendous amount of publicity and brand
recognition among Latin America's leaders.
Thus, School officials use the conference as a
major Latin America outreach opportunity, stag­ing
numerous alumni functions, hosting assort­ed
dinners, staffing a trade
show booth, and convening a
Thunderbird Alumni Associa­tion
(TAA) Latin America
Council meeting immediately
after the public program.
This year's conference fea­tured
panel discussions on
Investing in Latin America;
The Internet. Ecommerce, and
Ventures; Brazil 2000; Media and the Changing
Consumer; and Country Updates: Central
America & Caribbean. It also induded keynote
addresses by Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, Mexican
president-elect Vincente Fox's senior foreign
policy adviser; Jorge Quiroga, Bolivia's vice pres­ident;
and Ambassador Richard Fisher, Deputy
U.S. Trade Representative.
Seven of this year's speakers were Thunderbird
alumni. At least two others were recruited by
Thunderbirds, induding Colombia's President
Pastrana, who spoke courtesy of Luis Moreno
'77, Ambassador of Colombia to the United
States. This year's T-bird speakers were:
• Hector Gorosabel '87, VP, Central American
Region Manager, Coca-Cola Latin America
• Travis Good '84, VP, Technology and
Operations, AOL Latin America
• John Mein '70, President. The American
Chamber of Commerce, Brazil
• Scott Douglas Hollingsworth '77, President/
CEO-Latin America, Foote Cone & Belding
• W. Gary McBride '77, President - Latin
America, Bates Worldwide
• Alexandre Blochtein '88, President,
Emerson Electric S.A. Brazil
• Carlos Eduardo Berdegue '89, General
Manager, lllimani de Comunicaciones.
ABOVE LEFT TAA Latin America
Council president Marcos Garay
Velasco welcomes people to the
T-bird sponsored dinner. ABOVE
Members of the world media
await President Pastrana's arrival.
LEFT Peru's possible next presi­dent,
Alejandro Toledo, is
mobbed by the media after it
became apparent that Peru's
embattled president Fujimori
would be forced to resign.
NATION AT PEACE IF IT WEREN'T FOR THE OBSCENE PROFITS OF THE DRUG INDUSTRY."
p . 2 8 WWW.T-BIRD .EDU 54 / 1 / 2000
HOMECOMING
2000
Challenges, triumphs, and good 'ole T-bird tenacity
YOU can plan for many contingencies, but a catastrophic power failure that knocks out all lights,
electricity, phones, computers, and emergency back-up systems campus-wide - on the very eve
of Homecoming - simply isn't one of them. So, if Homecoming 2000 is remembered as the
night the lights went out in Glendale, it must also be remem­bered
as the day hundreds of students, speakers, faculty, staff, and alum­ni
stepped up to the plate - and with typical T-bird grace, levity, and
'can-do' initiative - delivered an outstanding ebusiness Forum as well
as numerous opening day activities .• To all who pitched in and per­severed
during a day of unbelievable - and, oddly enough, galvanizing
- challenges, Thunderbird, the Alumni Relations Office, e2v organiz­ers,
and Aramark extend their most heart-felt expressions of gratitude_
Global Issues 2000:
I eVolutionary Business
Strategy' Attracts 33
They graduated during six different decades,
represented 11 countries, were more than 30
strong, and took full advantage of Thun­derbird's
second annual alumni-exclusive pre­Homecoming
Executive Education program.
Entitled Global Issues 2000: eVolutionary
Business Strategy, this year's two and one-half­day
program analyzed high-profile companies
in ecommerce such as Amazon.com, eBay, Cisco
Systems, Dell, and Tesco and examined how
traditional industries are reengineering their
business processes to maximize the reach of the
Internet without sacrificing current customers
or strategy. Leaming modules included Strategic
Challenges in the New Economy, Issues in B2B
Business Models, Global Branding and Internet
Marketing, Creating Sustainable Advantage,
Globalization Factors in Ebusiness, Technology
Leadership, B2B Enablers, B2C, and Value Based
Management. During those modules, partici­pants
learned to evaluate how traditional value
disciplines such as customer relations, product
superiority, and operational excellence could
impact their companies. They also focused on
the ways in which global ebusiness is restructur­ing
markets and introducing new competitors.
Global Issues 2000 was designed and led by
Dr. Michael Moffett, an associate professor of
finance at Thunderbird. Other instructors
included Dr. Kannan Ramaswamy, Dr. Bill
Youngdahl, Dr. Andrew Inkpen, and Dr. Laur­anne
Buchanan. The program was offered to
alumni at a special $1,550 price - about 50
percent of what similar Exec. Ed. programs cost.
"We specifically designed Global Issues 2000
so that it would build on the unique strengths
and perspectives Thunderbird alumni were
bringing with them to class," Moffett said.
"That commonality provides a tremendous
advantage in a program of this nature. So, too,
does the fact that participants came from sever­al
countries and six graduation decades. Six
decades - I think that fact alone speaks vol­umes
about the nature ofT-birds who just seem
to have an insatiable desire to always keep
themselves on the cutting edge."
Program participants got a hands-on demon­stration
of the School's password-protected
Alumni My Thunderbird (AMTB) network on
Thursday - after which those who hadn't
"I'VE ALWAYS HAD HIGH EXPECTATIONS FROM
THUNDERBIRD, BUT THIS PROGRAM HAS SURPASSED
THEM ALL. BEING IN A CLASS WITH FELLOW T-BIRDS,
ESPECIALLY WHEN ONE-THIRD OF THEM WERE
FOREIGN AND ONE-THIRD WOMEN, BROUGHT A
PERSPECTIVE WE CERTAINLY DIDN'T HAVE WHEN I
WAS A STUDENT HERE FIVE DECADES AGO:'
- Class of '55's George Tregea (right) dines with Global Issues 2000 instructor
Dr. Kannan Ramaswamy. Tregea came in from Brazil to improve his ebusiness
skills, along with T-birds from six graduation decades who returned to share
their knowledge and learn more about 'eVolutionary Business Strategy.'
54/1/2000 WWW.T-BIRD . EDU
ABOVE T-bird alumni from six decades attend Global Issues 2000. ABOVE RIGHT The Wall Street Journal credit­ed
Phil Samper '61 with single-handedly salvaging Sun Microsystems core computer business when he was at
its helm_ The cyber savvy exec., Thunderbird Jonas Mayer Outstanding Alumnus award winner, and father of
two T-birds, also served as keynote speaker at this year's e2v Forum. Alumni may read his speech on AMTB_
RIGHT Motorola's Bill Austin tells how Bluetooth technology will make local wireline connections obsolete.
already signed on for their free account did so.
Six Global Issues participants who hadn't orig­inally
planned on staying for Friday's formal
Homecoming-related ebusiness conference,
chose to do so.
Special thanks go to Dr. Michael Moffet and
Executive Education director Marty OToole
'96, and the entire Exec Ed. team for the Global
Issues 2000 course.
elv FalllOOO Forum -
Global Issues in the New
Economy
If you wanted to know about Global Issues in
the New Economy, Thunderbird was the place
to be on Friday, November 3 during Home­coming.
That's the day current Thunderbird e2v
(formerly eVe) dub students and Thunderbird
brought some 350 leading global ecommerce
executives, business students, academians,
returning alumni, media, and guests to Glen­dale
to discuss challenges facing ebusinesses as
they expand worldwide.
The Forum was organized primarily by
Thunderbird's extremely esavvy student group
then sponsored as a Thunderbird Global Busi­ness
Forum. It featured speakers from industry
mainstays - Cisco, Lucent, eBay, Intel, and
Motorola - as well as those from major New
Economy concerns such as Global Crossing.
eStreet Capital, Concero, AvantGo, Gabriel
Venture Partners, and Knowitall.com. Topics
ranged from the role of infrastructure develop-ment,
global flows of venture capital. and the
development of mobile commerce, to an in­depth
discussion of the issues facing ebusiness­es
in each region.
e2v is an acronym for ebusiness, entrepre­neurship
and venture capital - three crucial
components of the New Economy. e2v created
the Forum in the fall of 1999 to bring these
issues to the forefront at Thunderbird, and has
held a day-long. twice-yearly event attracting
speakers from leading edge start-ups, Fortune
1000 ecommerce executives, venture capitalists
and other visionaries, ever since. This year, the
group spent five months in preparation, teamed
up with Thunderbird's Alumni Relations office,
then rescheduled its original program for Home­comjng
so that more alumni could participate.
That partnership proved strong. Some 150
alumni benefited from a truly dynamic day of
leading-edge ebusiness insight for an almost
unbelievably low $75 program fee. Hundreds
of students, faculty and staff attended for just
$20, as did many non-Thunderbirds, who paid
just $100 each. The resulting 'community' min­gled
throughout the day, at the post-event din­ner,
and at the Pub dance later on, forging what
appeared to be stronger and deeper relation­ships
than we've ever seen before.
One possible reason for the unusually strong
bond: the entire high-tech 'e' Forum was held
without even the most basic of 'e' functions -
electricity. That's because Thunderbird suffered
a total. catastrophic power loss just hours before
p. 2 9
ABOVE Cisco's Peter Penfield tells e2v attendees
that Cisco began 'laying track' for the Internet with
an 'if you build it , they will come' mindset. BELOW
Okay, so seeing friends is still the best part of
Homecoming!
p . 3 0
ABOVE French sculptress ANNJA is surrounded by
leaders from the Class of '60 - which commis­sioned
the statue to commemorate its 40th
reunion. Pictured (I to r) are Jack Donnelly, ANNJA,
Gene Wick and Mike Santellanes. RIGHT The e2v
Forum was planned and organized almost entirely
by current Thunderbird students. Student leaders
(I to r), Mike Rubel, Ifeoma Onwughalu, Josephine
Gilmore, Mathew Fleming, and Brett Grossman,
did a fantastic job! BELOW Two members of the
Class of '55 and three from the Class of '60 gather
WWW.T - BIRD .E DU
the event when its main underground power
supply shorted out, surged, and blew out almost
all campus electricity, phone, computer, and
emergency back-up systems.
What followed was a little bit like 'the best of
times - the worst of times: e2v organizers did­n't
miss a beat. On-line registration conforma­tion
gave way to low-tech paper lists. The
planned high-tech AT&T venue was abandoned
for the sun-lit World Business Building Atrium
- into which, hundreds of folding chairs were
quickly brought. Speakers from some of the
world's most prestigious global firms were
escorted by flashlight to non-tech speaking
posts. Multi-media-rich laptop presentations
54 / 1/2000
morphed into much warmer and more person­alized
info chats. Generators got ordered. Every­one
stayed cheerful. And, in the end, good con­tent
once more proved that it was king.
Special thanks go to all of the amazing
speakers and attendees who took everything in
stride. They also go to e2v Fall 2000 Forum
main organizers, Mike Rubel, Josephine Gil­more,
lfeoma Onwughalu, Mathew Fleming,
and Brett Grossman.
Elegant The Continents'
Sculpture Graces Campus
thanks to Class of' 60 Gift
It weighs 1.5 tons, stands 15 feet tall, rests
within the 30-foot reflecting pool, took four
years for French sculptress ANNJA to complete,
and absolutely united the Thunderbird commu­nity
during a well-attended Friday evening cere­mony.
It is the elegant 'The Continents' sculp­ture
which stands beautifully on the front lawn
of the Merle A. Hinrichs International Business
Information Centre (!BIC). The sculpture was
unveiled during the Class of 1960's 40th
reunion amid a festive ambiance of champagne,
hors d'oeuvres, Global Sounds music, a student
flag parade, and a wonderfully sung rendition of
the French and U.S. national anthems.
Based on the belief that borders frequented
by trade seldom require soldiers, the sculpture's
outer layer features the five inter-connected
"ART FOR ME IS THE MEANS TO REACH A HIGHER LEVEL OF
CONSCIOUSNESS ... TO OPEN UP TO OURSELVES, TO REALITY,
TO OTHERS, TO THE WORLD AND TO THE COSMOS IN
ORDER TO BECOME MORE UNIVERSAL. .. "
- ANNJA, with 'The Continents'
54 / 1/ 2000
continents - which symbolize movement,
communications and exchanges between coun­tries
and cultures. The sculpture is a gift from
Class of 1960 members, who have been some
of the most philanthropic at Thunderbird.
"The Class of 1960 couldn't have chosen a
more fitting and elegant means of immortaliz­ing
their feelings towards Thunderbird," said
Dr. Roy A. Herberger, Jr., President of Thunder­bird.
"The Continents reflects the 135 countries
our alumni come from and work in. The nucle­us
epitomizes the feeling of oneness that per­meates
throughout the Thunderbird campus
and community."
Led by Thunderbird Trustee Jack Donnelly,
who has already committed to giving the
school one of its largest planned gifts, Gene
Wick, who has pledged a sizable sum for schol­arships,
and Mike Santellanes, who has been
one of the school's most consistent annual
President's Council donors, the Class of 1960
wanted to do something visible to commemo­rate
their 40th reunion. Class members had
already donated the Pavilion.
"My classmates and I all remember our
semesters at Thunderbird as some of the best
times of our lives," said Donnelly on behalf of
his classmates. "We had a lot of fun while we
were here. In addition, we learned skills and
ideas that have served us well throughout our
careers and we were inspired to conduct busi­ness
with an awareness of other cultures and
other ways of doing things. It would give us
great satisfaction to know that this sculpture
will serve as inspiration for future generations
ofT-birds. "
WWW.T - BIRD . EDU
2000 Global Alumni
Awards Announced
The Thunderbird Alumni Association (TAA)
proudly announces the 2000 TAA Global
Alumni Awards recipients. The awards were pre­sented
during the Homecoming Gala, held at
the Pointe/Hilton grand ballroom Saturday
night. The winners are Phil Samper '61, George
Fugelsang '63, G. Kelly O'Dea '72, Charlotte
Kennedy-Takahashi '76, Luis Moreno '77,
Walter Joyce '99, and Mark Leslie '00. Alumnus
Jeff Martin presided over the ceremony.
Each year at Homecoming awards are pre­sented
to extraordinary graduates. They repre­sent
various continents, disciplines, T-bird con­tributions,
and civic activities, and are nomi­nated
by faculty, staff, alumni and students. The
categories are Rising Star, Distinguished
Alumni - given in the fields of banking &.
finance, marketing. public service, and entre­preneurship
- and the Jonas Mayer Outstand­ing
Alumnus Award.
RISING STAR AWARDS
Geared towards alumni who have graduated
within the last ten years, Rising Stars are select­ed
based on their initial professional achieve­ments
and positive contributions to Thunder­bird,
the community, and international busi­ness.
This year's winners were Walter Joyce '99
and Mark Leslie '00, who were founding mem­bers
of the highly-successful student-led eVe
technology Forums that are now held twice­yearly
at Thunderbird under their new name,
e2v.
Joyce is chief operating officer, Inculab, Inc. a
New York-based Venture Capital group and
Incubator. He is also the chairman and found­ing
CEO for eVe Global Group, Inc., a New
p .31
LEFT AND ABOVE Classmates gather and reconnect
at a variety of dinners and social functions during
the reunion. BELOW Student Ozgur Berkmen of
Global Sounds performs.
York-based global consulting firm. Joyce has
been quoted in the New York Times and Silicon
Alley Reporter.
Leslie is a product marketing manager with
RightWorks Corporation, which was founded in
1996 and a partner in the Internet Capital
Group network and a leading provider of next­generation
ebusiness applications for customers
such as CSC, Fujitsu, Industrial America, Juniper
Networks, and Wells Fargo Bank.
DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS
Targeted towards alumni who graduated
more than ten years ago, Distinguished Alumni
are recognized in each of four categories for
their professional contributions globally.
BANKING & FINANCE:
GEORGE FUGELSANG ' 63
Fugelsang is president &. CEO of Dresdner
Kleinwort Benson North America Inc. (an
investment banking firm) and regional chief
p.32
executive overseeing Dresdner Bank
Group's North America activities -
including Dresdner Bank Mexico, S.A.
and Dresdner Bank Canada. He holds
a number of outside board member­ships,
including the Board of Trustees
at Thunderbird, and has been an out­standing
host for Thunderbird's
Winterim on Wall Street program.
MARKETING:
G. KELLY O'DEA '72
O'Dea is president of FCB World­wide,
one of the advertising industry's
leading global companies, where he
helps develop and integrate brands
across communications channels and
borders worldwide. O'Dea has
worked for corporate giants such as
Ford, Jaguar, Unilever, Shell, TWA,
Kraft, Pepsico, Microsoft, AT&T, and
IBM, and also serves on the Board of
Trustees at Thunderbird.
PUBLIC SERVICE: LUIS MORENO '77
Appointed Ambassador of Colombia to the
United States in September 1998 by President
Pastrana, Moreno has had a distinguished
career in both the public and private sectors. In
addition to holding several other government
posts, he was the President of the Instituto de
Fomento Industrial, the main financial corpo­ration
of Colombia. Moreno is a frequent
Thunderbird speaker and helped arrange
President Pastrana's address at the recent Miami
Herald Americas Conference.
ENTREPRENERUSHIP:
CHARLOTTE KENNEDY-TAKAHASHI '76
Chairman and founder of Oak Associates
K.K., Kennedy-Takahashi provides internation­al
search outsourcing, executive assessment,
and executive contracting services in the U.S. as
well as search consulting, executive outsourc­ing,
career consulting, and training and per­formance
management in Japan. She is a fre­quent
guest on British, U.S., and Japanese tele­vision
and radio shows, has been on the
American Chamber of Commerce Board in
Japan for ten years, and is vice president of the
Tokyo American Club.
JONAS MAYER OUTSTANDING
ALUMNUS AWARD
This award is presented to one alumnus who
has demonstrated incredible professional
achievements during his or her career, as well as
civic service, and a commitment to Thunder­bird.
The Wall Street Journal credited Phil Samper
'61 with turning around Sun Microsystems'
WWW.T- BIRD .EDU 54 / 1 / 2000
ABOVE TAA 2000 award winners gather at the gala. They are from left, Mark Leslie '00, Walter Joyce '99,
Charlotte Kennedy-Takahashi 76 and George Fugelsang '63. Alumnus Jeff Martin '90 (right) presented the
awards. Award recipients not pictured are G. Kelly O'Dea 72, Luis Moreno 77 and Phil Sam per '61. BELOW
Outgoing TAA North America Council members Bruce Olson '82, Annette Cazenave 79, Michael Stitt '89,
and Chris Johnson '86 are honored for their incredible efforts in helping Thunderbird create and launch
regional councils that have begun reconnecting T-birds worldwide.
core computer business. Today, he's the manag­ing
director and co-founder of Gabriel Venture
Partners, and a recognized expert on emerging
trends in the information technology, Internet,
and communications arenas, as well as busi­ness
and strategic development. Samper now
serves on the boards of Sylvan Learning
Systems, The Interpublic Group of Companies,
the Johns Hopkins Medical Center, iTango,
SalesHound.com and all Gabriel portfolio
c

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Full Text

THUNDERBIRD Magazin e WWW.T-BIRD.EDU 54/1 / 2000
THUNDERBIRD
Page 2
Beware the ROI
'Merger mania' has now gone global.
But, beware! Cross-border M&As are often
fraught with peril.
Page 8
No Matter Where
They Roam
A single digital device could soon serve you in
Miami, Madrid, Melbourne, and Medellin in
ways you can't even yet imagine.
Page 14
MIMLA Graduates
First Class
They were the first of a new breed ofT-birds.
They remained in Mexico, yet earned joint
degrees from two very impressive schools.
Page 16
The Original
Thunderbirds
Before Thunderbird trained students for global
business missions, it trained World War II
pilots for missions of a very different sort.
Page 22
Bonjour et Bienvenue
Thunderbird Europe's French-Geneva Center
expands and begins admitting
full-time students
Thunderbird is America's premier
TABLE OF CONTENTS
source of global management education with
operations in the U.S., France, Russia,
China, Japan, Mexico and Taiwan.
Page 1
FROM GLENDALE TO GLOBAL
Thunderbird increasingly takes its programs,
professors, and students around the globe.
Page 12
FACULTY VIEWPOINT
Privatization was once seen as the 'cure all' for
many nations, but is it? Professor Shoshana Tancer
tells the tale.
Page 20
CAREER FAIR 2000
World's best companies meet world's best talent at
'way cool' Thunderbird event.
Page 24
NO RESTRICTIONS
Don't tell these feisty T-bird women that the world
wasn't - or isn't - ready for top female executives.
Page 26
AMERICAS CONFERENCE
When you can bring country presidents and scores of
Latin America political and business leaders together
in one room, Miami becomes the place to be.
Page 28
HOMECOMING
It was 'the night the lights went out in Glendale' but
the Global Issues 2000 class, The Fall e2v Forum,
the Pub, and other events still rocked.
Page 33
EXECUTIVE EDUCATION DELIVERS
Today's brightest global risers are having
Thunderbird deliver degree and other training right
to their regions, companies, and work desks.
Page 34
EUROPEAN REUNION
Page 36
THUNDERBIRD GLOBAL BUSINESS
FORUMS IN ASIA
Page 38
T-BIRD NEWS
Page 40
NETWORK NEWS
Page 42
UPDATES
ABOUT OUR COVER
Dr. Anant Sundaram is a leading finance and
global strategy professor at Thunderbird.
~~------------
54 / 1 / 2000 P AGE p . 1
ONE
FROM
TO
GLENDALE
GLOBAL
For more than 50 years, Thunderbird has worked to bring the
world to Glendale. The School works just as hard to take
Thunderbird's programs, professors, and students around the world.
As the world's only truly global management school. Thunder-
" bi rd is reinvigorating its reach to all corners of the world," said
John Seybolt. sen ior vice president for Academic Affairs at
Thunderbird. "From executive education partnerships with companies
small and large on four continents, to the Thunderbird Centers near
Geneva and in Tokyo, to our programs in Mexico, China, and Russi a, to
the Winterims we hold throughout the world,
Thunderbird is, literally, spreading its brand of
global management education to people and
places where such opportunities were just a
dream a few short years ago."
During this past year alone:
• Thunderbird trained 1,000 working execu­tives
in 10 non-U.S. countries as well as 3,500
others who were U.S. based. That training, which
was delivered by Executive Education, included
everything from three- to lO-day seminars on
topics such as ebusiness, finance, and marketing;
to multi-week, custom company programs.
• The Thunderbird Center for Business Skills
Development (CBSD) emerging markets team
trained over 200 and 2,320 people in China and
Russia respectively. That training included every­thing
from skills-based Becker CPA reviews to
custom corporate programs such as the School's
Looking Glass management simulation tool.
ness Forums - which were held in Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, Miami,
Glendale, and Silicon Valley. These Forums are one-half-day or full-day
topic-speci fic programs that are held in different regions every year.
• 480 full -time 'traditional' MIM students studied in at least one of
Thunderbird's overseas programs during the last year.
• 440 students from 43 nations did internships in 20 countries.
• Approximately 60 professors taught at Thun­derbird's
full-time faciliti es in France and Japan,
at its summer program in Guadalajara, Mexico,
in either its Latin America-based MIMLA pro­gram
or Russia and China-based CBSD programs,
or at one or more of the other custom programs
Executive Education runs worldwide.
• Fourteen Thunderbird professors took stu­dents
overseas during last January's three-week
Winterim session. Others hosted off-site courses in
places such as Wall Street and Washington, D.C.
According to Seybolt. Thunderbird has aggres­sively
formed strategic alliances with major cor­porations,
governments, and prominent business
schools to better serve business leaders globally.
Many of those people are already Thunderbird
alumni who are retooling skills to remain com­petitive.
Others are corporate champions who
want to strengthen their global market edge by
having their people trained.
• Thunderbird graduated its first class of dis­tance
learning-trained students on June 30th. In
fact, there is now one Master of International
Management for Latin America (MlMLA) student
(232 in all) for every six traditional MIM students
at Thunderbird. MIMLA is a joint degree program
Thunderbird's Dr. Roy Herberger is granted a
formal audience with Jiang Six ian,
secretary general of the Shanghai
Municipal People's Government,
"Executive Education is no longer an entitle­ment
or simply a benefit. It is being used as a
change agent in organizations to establish and
reinforce company initiatives and growth," said
Bud Robyn, senior vice president of Thunder­bird's
Exec. Ed. group. "Thunderbird likes to
during his visit to China.
offered in partnership with the Instituto Tecnol6gico y de Estudios
Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM), a leading business school in Latin
America. MlMLA students earn their two-year MIMLA degrees by leverag­ing
distance leaming technology from seven ITESM sites.
• The School launched its first regional Master in International Man­agement
for executives in cooperation with the Acer Group in Taiwan.
This program serves working professionals throughout Asia who com­mute
to Acer's Aspire Academy for eight professional development work­shops.
When combined with two modules on the Thunderbird campus
in Glendale and interactive web-based instruction, executives can quali­fy
for an MIM degree. Thunderbird is rolling out similar programs in
cooperation with other leading organizations throughout the world.
• 1,400 people attended one or more of Thunderbird's Global Busi-think
of Executive Education as a strategic weapon that can be used by
business managers around the globe."
One of Exec. Ed's key strengths appears to be its ability to form close,
long-term relationships with key clients. "By truly partnering with com­panies,
we can provide services such as needs assessments, custom pro­grams,
evaluations, and consulting services," Robyn said. "Then, we act as
a navigator, facilitating our partners through today's business challenges."
According to Robyn, companies are asking Thunderbird to offer
'seamless training solutions globallY: They want everything from very
'high-touch' senior level and on-site custom programs, to full-fledged
executive degrees, to mid-range, functional courses, to introductory-level
culture, business, and language classes that might even be delivered
directly to an employee's desk. •
p.2 WWW.T-BIRD.EDU 54/ 1/2000
Cross-border M&As are
often fraught with peril
BY LINDSEY MICHAELS
hile mergers and acquisitions (M&As) used to be mainly a U.S. craze, 'merger
mania' is now exploding globally. But let the business world beware because
although M&As are supposed to facilitate market entry, technology transfer, and the
achievement of worldwide economies of scale, virtually every study shows that, on
average, M&A costs and challenges often outweigh the short-term gains to the
acquirer. For many, offshore M&As have even turned into full-blown nightmares.
Those companies simply hadn't been prepared for doing due diligence abroad - where information
access, reporting practices, business cultures, and communication styles can present major challenges. •
So, how can global T-birds help their companies do M&As wisely? We asked a few experts.
"Here at Delphi, which is a General Motors
spin-off. we've been averaging one acquisition
per month since 1995," said David Rocher '93,
manager, mergers & acquisitions, at Delphi
Automotive Systems. "The fIrst thing we've
found is that you have to have a partner or
someone on your own team who really speaks
the language, understands the culture, and
knows the local accounting practices.
"For instance, if you don't understand the
nuances and functions of certain contacts,
you'll never fInd the right person to ask the real
hands-on questions," he said. "Likewise, you
have to understand exactly how numbers are
confIgured and reported under that country's
accounting standards, as well as how things like
labor laws may affect a company's ability to
hire or layoff workers."
According to Rocher, truly successful M&As
only occur in cases when you know your part­ners
as well as you know their books. Do they
have a history of getting into unsuccessful ven­tures?
Do they share your approach to business,
work style, and general ethics? Any of these fac­tors
can derail a merger that looks rock-solid
fInancially.
Rocher added that Delphi also employs a
post acquisition integration team. "our imple­mentation
team is made up of people from dif­ferent
functional areas who have entirely differ­ent
skill sets from the acquisition team."
Rocher termed that group 'critical' and said
they face many challenges, such as integrating
legacy systems, and trying to consolidate peo­ple
and operations into one cohesive team.
As a Deloine & Touche consultant, Van Beer
'94 has a slightly different view of M&As. He
and his company provide third party due dili­gence
and acquisition advisory services to com­panies.
"On the 'buy' side, we look at the target
company to see if it makes strategic sense, then
analyze product lines, price points, and growth
potential to determine revenue flow or cost sav­ings.
We also look at existing managers to ana­lyze
their strengths, weaknesses, and ability to
fIt in with the new company."
According to Beer, there are two types of
acquirers: strategic buyers and financial ones.
Strategic buyers are usually in the same or relat­ed
industries and are looking for product and
management synergies. Financial buyers are
focused on returns, not synergies, and are more
concerned about existing management because
they are not good at operating companies.
"We do financial analysis from both an
accounting and tax perspective and, a lot of
times, it's the tax consequences that drive or kill
the deal," Beer said. Given that many countries
have their own accounting standards, auditors
really have to understand the intricacies of each
system. "Depreciation is one of the biggest
areas we look at. We need to know if the com­pany
is using the straight line or accelerated
method so that we can back things out and
make apples-to-apples comparisons."
Beer's team also has to know a lot about
country-specifIc nuances. "France, for instance,
has a very tax-driven accounting system. That
means that they tend to push revenue recogni-
54 / 1/ 2000 WWW.T-B1RD . EDU p .3
p .4
tion back and book expenses quickly. Once you
understand that they work to minimize
reportable income you can convert and com­pare
more effectively." Beer added that U.S.
public companies tend to do just the opposite;
they post cash quickly to help drive up per­share
prices.
"But you can't stop after the financial due
diligence is done," Beer said. "You have to do
cultural due diligence as well." Beer has even
found large cultural and industry variations to
the due diligence approach. "We went into one
French company for what we considered a very
early information-only meeting and found that
they were very much into finding out details.
They wanted to know how each process worked
from A to Z and, essentially, things that went
right down to the daily job activities for each
person." However, Beer's Mexican client
approached things differently. Its people
focused less on the financial due diligence
process and more on getting to know their
potential partners. "They were much more rela­tionship
driven and informal."
Most experts say that relationships are criti­cal
success factors in MMs.
"Europeans tend to react more slowly and to
be more deliberate in their decision process
than Americans. This has presented real prob­lems
for European companies - especially
those that have acquired Silicon Valley-based
high-tech fums," said Beer. "Many aren't work­ing
out because the Silicon Valley work culture
simply doesn't tolerate having R&D sidelined
for months while the corporate office back in
Europe debates some­thing."
"Acquisitions of high­tech
firms, especially in
Silicon Valley, have
proved to be problemat­ic
for non-U.S. firms,"
LEFT David Rocher '93, who manages M&As at
Delphi Automotive, says cultural differences can
quickly derail a merger that looked rock-solid finan ­cially.
Delphi employs a special post-merger imple­mentation
team. RIGHT Van Beer '94, who analyzes
M&As for Deloitte & Touche cautions that financial
due diligence is just the first of many factors to
consider when looking at cross-border M&As.
WWW.T-BIRD.EDU
added Anant Sundaram, an associate professor
of finance at Thunderbird. "With high-tech
companies, your assets basically walk out the
door each evening and you can only hope that
they come back tomorrow. Those assets are
information-based and reside in peoples' heads
- which makes them much more difficult to
value, acquire, and integrate successfully than
equipment or cash flows," he said. "Those assets
are also more difficult to retain and motivate."
Sundaram added that in addition to cultural
challenges, non-U.S. firms also face some very
real financial challenges when acquiring high­tech
companies. "Non-U.S. firms traditionally
don't offer stock options and bonuses that are
considered a 'no-brainer' here. So what does a
company like Ericsson, for example, do? If they
offer stock options to U.S. employees they have
to offer them to their other 100,000-plus
employees worldwide. But doing so would cost
some real money - not to mention the fact that
it would tum their corporate culture upside
down," he said. "Look at Sweden, where Erics­son
is based. Employees would be taxed on the
entire value of their stock options in the year
those options were granted - whether they
were exercised or not. How should company
officials compensate for that fact when their
U.S. employees are only taxed on the gains they
realize when their options are exercised?"
Stock-related challenges actually playa larg­er
role in M&As. For instance, non-U.S. compa­nies
face the very real hurdle of having to list
their stock on a U.S. exchange before being
allowed to engage in stock-based MMs involv­ing
U.S. companies. But listing that
stock opens them to numerous SEC­related
(Security and Exchange Com­mission)
and market fluctuation chal­lenges.
Curtis Fox '88, the London-based
director of investor relations at
Edelman Public Relations Worldwide
and a TAA EMEA Council member,
understands several of those chal­lenges
first-hand. "One of our clients,
which is currently doing an IPO (ini­tial
public offering), has decided that it
only wants its stock listed on
Germany's Neuer Markt exchange, not
on either U.S. exchange," he said. "The
main reason is the SEC. Under SEC
guidelines, companies have to honor a
'qu iet period' where they can't promote their
company. Listing on the Neuer Markt doesn't
bring that requirement. However, since they're
not listing this stock on a U.S. exchange, we at
Edelman can't promote or market our client to
potential U.S. institutional and retail investors
- not even those Americans who are living in
Europe."
54/1/2000
THE WORLD OF M&As
According to Anant Sundaram, associ­ate
professor of finance, who teaches
both MIM and Executive Education
courses at Thunderbird, U.S. companies were
involved in approximately 90,000 M&A
deals between 1981 and 1999, with the value
of those deals approaching US$8.0 trillion.
That had made the U.S. the world's most
active M&A market, but that gap is tighten­ing.
U.S. firms tackled US$2.5 trillion worth
of MMs during 1998 and 1999, followed by
the European Union (EO) with US$l.S tril­lion,
and the four most active M&A countries
in Latin America - Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
and Mexico - which did a distant US$120
billion. However, M&A activity in the EU has
nearly equaled U.S. activity year-to-date in
2000; it was US$987 billion in the EU, com­pared
to US$1.08 trillion in the U.S., accord­ing
to Securities Data Corporation.
While the mega-deals typically garnered
the lion's share of media and public policy
attention, the average M&A was much small­er
- about US$78 million per deal -
although that average has been trending up.
That average was between US$130 and 140
million per deal during the last three years.
"The reality is that today's global managers
are often involved in a series of smaller acqui­sitions
throughout their careers, many of
which happen at the divisional or country
level - not corporate, • said Sundaram.
He said that there is currently no conclu­sive
research evidence showing whether a
series of smaller acquisitions is ultimately
more profitable for companies than one
mega-deal, but his early research into the
subject leads him to believe that this could
be true.
"For one thing, smaller acquisitions tend
to be cash-based, rather than stock-based: he
explained. "That means you pay the money
upfront and go on. When you use your own
stock as the medium of exchange in acquisi­tions,
you give away ownership of future cash
flows rather than preserving them for your
current shareholders. You bring in a new
group of shareholders that you have to paci­fy."
Sundaram also said that when companies
announce that they are planning to use their
own stock as merger currency, they signal the
market that they think their stock is over­priced
- that even if they pay for all poten­tial
future gains with stock today, at today's
price, they will still be getting a good bargain
54 / 1/2000
- and, because of that, the announcement
effect is that their stock price almost always
drops, relative to cash-based deals.
"When you acquire a company, you basi­cally
do a present value (PV) calculation of
all the future earnings - both base-case and
synergies - you expect to realize, then you
pay for them today. That money's gone," said
Sundaram. "The target company's sharehold­ers
immediately pocket the PV of the full
long-term value you've identified and walk
away happy. It's the acquiring company that's
left trying to realize all of the long-term effi­ciencies
and gains it's already paid for. That's
why when a merger is announced, the target
company's stock price usually shoots up
while the acquiring company's stock
price drops, or at best, stays flat, n he said.
Smaller cash acquisitions may work
better for others reasons too. For one
thing, post-merger integration is easier.
' Consider the example of Cisco, a compa­ny
that has acquired over 60 companies in
a lO-year period. Cisco is a master of the
M&A. One reason it's done so well is that
it has typically acquired smaller compa­nies
- and it's a lot easier to integrate 500
new people and their systems into a work­force
of 20,000 than it is to bring in
10,000." Sundaram believes that size may
also play a critical role in the upfront
negotiation process. "When relative
equals face off, the target company is able
to exert more influence to extract more
value and concessions than a small com­pany
could do. Smaller companies tend
to have less negotiating power, so they get.
beat down more." Smaller acquisitions
also tend to be less driven by 'managerial
hubris: or empire-building considera­tions.
According to Sundaram, M&As were
pretty much an Anglo-American phenome­non
for the last two decades, but as the
European M&A numbers show, that trend is
now changing. 'Until a few years ago,
European, Japanese, and Korean companies
hadn't woken up to the fact that they would
have to change and grow to survive in the
evolving global marketplace for products,
people, technology, and capital, n said
Sundaram. "Like it or not, world businesses
and their corporate governance practices are
moving towards the contractarian Anglo­American,
shareholder-oriented, 'what have
you done for me lately; business model."
Governance styles in both Asia and
Continental Europe had traditionally been
WWW.T-BIRD .EDU
much more stakeholder-oriented, relation­ship-
based, and relied on what Sundaram
calls a "communitarian style of doing busi­ness
where employees, banks, suppliers, and
so forth, played substantial governance
roles."
"Europe has been the fastest to change
outside the AnglO-American countries of the
U.S., Canada, UK, and Australia; with North­ern
Europe - especially Sweden and Finland
- leading the way," he said. He added that
Japan and South Korea need to get much
more aggressively involved in M&As.
"The biggest challenge to non-U.S. com­panies
is that they can't do stock-based
Thunderbird's Dr. Anant Sundaram says that most
country level managers must now analyze and
implement many small- to mid-sized mergers
during their careers. Are they ready?
FOR DISCUSSION AND ANALY IS of issues men­tioned
here, see: "Cross-border Acquisition of
u.s. Technology Assets: in California Marutge­ment
Review, Spring 2000, and "Purposes and
Accountability of the Corporation: Corporate
Governance at a Crossroads," in Law and
Contemporary Problems, Summer 1999. A PDF
version of the latter can be downloaded free of
charge from Dr. Sundaram's AMTB profile at
h ltp://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?ABSTRACT_J
D=220570
p .5
acquisitions of U.S. companies unless their
stock is also listed on a U.S. exchange. But if
they list it, they become subject to the same
U.S. laws, shareholder scrutiny, and market
volatility as U.S. companies. That has basi­cally
come as a rude shock for many non­U.
S. companies."
So too has the concept of 'hostile'
takeovers. While investment banker and
lawyer driven hostile takeovers were fairly
commonplace in the States during the
1980s. Sundaram said they fell out of vogue
here as the market matured. ' With hostile
takeovers, you usually pay a higher premium
and have almost no inside-based due dili-gence
data," he said. "They also take
longer to complete and tend to bring
more integration issues. On the other
hand, when a takeover is openly hostile,
you can be more ruthless, and thus
faster, during the integration process."
According to Sundaram, Europe's evo­lution
through the hostile takeover
phase is normal and should lead to the
type of "restructuring, deconglomerat­ing,
and return to focus" that the U.S.
began experiencing two decades ago.
Although painful, those processes ulti ­mately
helped spawn the economic
boom the U.S. has enjoyed.
So, will another region or country sur­pass
the U.S. as the dominant global
economic player during the next 10
years or so as they master M&As?
Probably not, said Sundaram.
"J think that throughout the next
decade, the world will still be beating a
path to the U.S:s door," he said. "For
one thing, English is now the language
of world business and the Anglo­American
style of corporate governance
is becoming the world's standard. Even
more of a reason, however, is the fact that the
changes we're talking about, the sweeping
cultural, legal, and tax reforms that, by neces­sity,
come along with this process of driving
towards enhanced productivity, will funda­mentally
change all aspects of life in the
countries in which they're happening. This is
going to turn governments, unions, and the
social welfare systems upside down - and
there will be a fair amount of push-back. So
we're probably going to see the rest of the
world taking one or two steps backwards for
every three steps forward during the next few
years, while the U.S. just keeps plowing on
ahead."
- LINDSEY MICHAELS
p.6
Fox said that part of his firm's job involves
knowing how each investment market works
and what its unique communications-related
regulations are. He must then help educate his
clients and try to manage their expectations
about what is - or isn't - possible given their
budgets and the breadth of their new market
place. "Given that it's so easy fo r people to
access information now, we also have to really
work with all parties, in all countries, to ensure
message consistency and to coordinate when
and what we ultimately release," he said. "Some­thing
that gets released into one market will
almost certainly reach into others, and that can
impact our client's sales as well as its stock price."
According to Fox, small, established Euro­pean
companies have bee.n doing IPOs, then
using their newly acquired capital for M&As.
"This year has just been a boom time for M&As
in Europe," he said. "Many European compa­nies
had economies of scale in their individual
markets - France or Germany; for instance -
but with the advent of the Euro and the trend
towards globalizing. they're realizing that they
need to play on a more regional or global basis
to remain competitive. We try to help."
Besides helping its clients generate
publicity and brand awareness in each
new marketplace, Fox said that his com­pany
must also counsel clients about
the potential risks of IPOs. That's
because hostile takeovers are in vogue
in Europe, which means that compa­nies
that float might actually make
themselves targets as well as potential
acquirers.
"We didn't use to have that many
unfriendly takeovers here," Fox said,
"certainly not across borders. But big
investors are now encour­aging
outsiders to come
across borders, take over
local companies, then
restructure all the pieces
into bigger, better global
businesses. What we're
seeing is an industry by
industry cycle," he said.
"One company obtains TOP Bea Cueto '87
competitive advantage BELOW Dr. Franc;ois
through an M&A and the Lhabitant
others - whether around
the corner or the world - have to fo llow, have
to consolidate, in order to compete."
That's just one of the many challenges of
today's new global market place, where manag­ing
your brand, funds, culture, and investors
are all critical to long term M&A success. Now,
don't you wish you'd taken better notes while
you were taking that course on Global
Strategies? •
WWW.T- BIRD . EDU 54 / 1/2 000
M&As. IPOs. AND GLOBAL WEALTH
Private banking has been one of the
hottest topics - and jobs - at Thunder­bird
of late. And no wonder! Over one
million people became millionaires last year,
according to the 2000 Merrill Lynch/Gemini
Consulting World Wealth Report. That report
predicted that high net worth individuals'
(HNWI) wealth would grow by more than 12
percent per year through 2004, to US$44.9
trillion. It also said that more than 55,000
'ultra high net worth' individuals worldwide
already have personal financial assets exceed­ing
US$30 million each.
1\vo reasons were given for the growth. The
first was global real gross domestic product
(GOP) expansion, which helped create new
businesses and markets. The second was the
global stock market, which grew by 37 percent
last year.
There is little doubt that both the number
of HNWls and their respective wealth will
increase throughout the world as more and
more family businesses and Internet start-ups
do initial public offerings
(IPOs) or get acquired.
"Traditionally, most Euro­pean
businesses have relied
on personal capital and bank
loans to grow. Very few went
to the next step, to an IPO,"
explained Franc;ois Lhabitant,
an assistant professor of
finance at the Thunderbird
Europe's French-Geneva Cen­ter
and the head of quantita­tive
risk management at
Union Bancaire Privee in Geneva,
Switzerland. "In fact, until very
recently, an IPO was considered a
symbol of success in countries like
France, Switzerland, and Germany."
According to Lhabitant, few peo­ple
in those countries understood
equity markets. In fact, he said,
many perceived the stock market as
a casino, where only the very rich could play
and win. And, with capital gains taxed at rates
of up to 47 percent, it just made more sense
for most people to invest in other ways.
"For instance, when France Telecom went
public, it offered its employees the opportu­nity
to invest up to 25,000 francs, about
US$4,000, in its stock," he said. "What's
more, it offered to lend them the money at
zero percent interest and provided the guar­antee
that it would buy back that stock at the
original price after three years. That was a ter-rific
deal and yet, relatively few employees
took advantage of it. "
Today, Lhabitant said, Europeans are
becoming much more comfortable with stock
and are, in fact, watching the proliferation of
Internet start-ups, the increasing popularity of
stock options, the trend towards IPOs, the
impending tax law changes, and the influx of
online brokerage services with great interest.
Many are also cheering the recent creation of
secondary stock markets in France, Switzer­land,
and Germany that have made it possible
for smaller companies to get listed.
Such changes have already helped fuel
Europe's current M&A craze. They could also
easily spark a new wave of wealth creation and
significant cultural changes throughout
Europe, according to Lhabitant.
Similar trends are also starting to sweep
through Latin America and Asia, which has 1. 7
million HNWls.
"Argentina and Chile, where I work exten­sively,
have a very sophisticated business envi­ronment
with very highly educated global
investors,' said Beatrice Cueto '87, a senior
vice president at Salomon Smith Bamey in
Miami, who provides financial advice and serv­ices
to the ultra high net worth individuals,
especially wealth generating entrepreneurs.
"Chile, for instance, has benefited greatly
from a large number of U.S. educated econo­mists,
known as the 'Chicago Boys: who stud­ied
in the U.S. then returned to Chile where
they were influential in reshaping their coun­try
and transforming it into a very advanced
economy: she said. ·One of their greatest
merits was the privatization of the Pension
Fund system, which, in turn, developed
Chile's capital markets."
Largely because of them, Cueto said, the
entrepreneurs in Argentina and Chile have
enjoyed a long history of doing business with
multi-nationals, and have, therefore, been able
to develop worldwide contacts.
'The 'Bigger is Better' trend has spread to this
Southern Cone of Latin America," said Cueto,
"where they have experienced a large volume
of mergers and acquisitions during the past
years. This trend has touched most sectors of
the economy, including financial services,
health care, and telecommunications."
Cueto added that because of all of the above
factors, ultra high net worth Argentineans and
Chileans have been active global investors for
many years. She believes they have paved the
investment path for those who follow.
- LINDSEY MICHAELS
p.B WWW.T-BIRD.EDU
NO MATTER
WHERE
THEY ROAM
54/1/2000
Global telecommunications systems help people
transact business and keep in touch
'94(above) and
Kirchdorfer 'S7 of Ericsson say
personal communications devices
will create entirely new business
and personal opportunities.
Bjorn submitted this picture
using a digital camera
attachment to his Palm Pilot,
then emailed the shot. (right)
BY LINDSEY MICHAELS
he flies from Miami, to Madrid, to Melbourne, then back home through Medellin - 5 using a single cellular phone throughout her three-week trip. That phone - or person­al
communications device (peD) - doesn't just allow her to send and receive tele­phone
calls, photos, and emails, it also alerts her that a favorite friend is also in Madrid.
Then since both have also pre-programmed in their fondness for fish, the peD provides
a list of nearby Sushi bars - along with their directions and menus.
Sound farfetched? Well hang on to your horses because that same peD will also allow our glob­al
traveler to access the Internet, watch movies, make online purchases, inventory the family 'fridge;
then reorder from afar. It will also function as a global positioning system as she moves from place
to place, and will even allow her to turn on the heat and lights at home upon landing.
Welcome to the telecommunications (telecom) industry in the year 2000! While
not all of the aforementioned features are fully functional as yet, many are here -
or near - at least in some regions. Think what you will about them, but the
experts say that all should substantially change the way people communicate
and work.
Europeans, for instance, had long been seasoned mobile telephony users,
but today they're embracing the Internet. Americans, who had long-lever­aged
fixed wireline and cable for telephone and Internet, are finally
roaming freely from coast to coast - and overseas - with a sin­gle
wireless. Japanese, who hadn't had much personal com­puter
access, are now going wild for the new Mobile
Internet. Mexicans, Brazilians and many others who
barely had telephone access, are now enjoying wide­spread
wireless and growing Internet access thanks to
privatization, the global telecom consolidation
trend, and new technology.
industry is all about the Mobile Internet,"
Masle '94, vice president of market-communications
for Ericsson, one of the
ications industry's leading companies.
about the 'three anys': any time, any place,
how."
ng to Masle, Finnish and Swedish youths
already sending several million text messages over
hand-helds each day. And in Japan, where per­computer
ownership rates are low, an unexpected
million people already use the new I-mode Mobile
access that's being offered by Japan-owned NIT.
"I personally expect to see more wireless than hard-wired
users within three years," he said.
"There are many different things one should look at when
54 / 1 / 2000 WWW.T - BIRD .E DU p .9
p . 1 0
talking about the Mobile Internet. Imagine that
you're driving down a remote and unfamiliar
road when something goes wrong with your
car. A registered wireless device that's embed­ded
in your car first runs a diagnostic program
to see if it can detect, then fix, the problem. If it
can't, it scans for nearby garages and sends out
a call for help, using its global positioning sys­tem
to transmit your exact location as well as its
analysis of what's wrong with your car. Or sup­pose
you're in an accident. Your personal
mobile device doesn't just call for an ambu­lance,
it also transmits your entire medical his­tory
to the team that is en route."
Masle said that people should also be able to
book airline reservations, download 'infotain­ment:
and shop using their mobiles. "Within
five years, I think we're going to see an alI-com­municative
world where people are going to be
able to control their communication access and
stay connected to the people who are impor­tant
to them - be they family or business col­leagues
- in the ways that they want to."
·Convergence is coming and it will revolu­tionize
the way we socialize and do business,
but voice is still the primary telecom need in
many parts of Asia and Latin America," added
Bjorn Kirchdorfer '87, vice president of a glob­al
customer team at Ericsson. "We're talking
regions and countries where there is still no
telephone access for a large portion of the pop-
WWW.T - BIRD . EDU
ulation - period," he said. "Imagine the eco­nomic
growth that will occur in China, for
instance, once farmers and families outside of
Beijing get communications access."
Kirchdorfer said that Sweden-based Ericsson
partners with telecom providers across the
globe to plan and deploy telecommunications
solutions for each market. "It isn't economical
to run copper wire throughout China, but the
good news is that with wireless, there's no need
to," he said. "Wireless allows emerging markets
to quickly play 'catch up' and 'leap frog' ahead
with technology in ways that would actually be
more difficult if they had to evolve from tradi­tional
fixed-wire technologies. " In basic terms,
that means giving people for whom modern
day communications was, at best, a luxury, reg­ular
phone access simply by installing repeater
towers throughout their countryside.
Brazil and Mexico, which have both priva­tized
their telecom industries in recent years,
have already begun experiencing that boom.
Whereas it used to take new Brazilian business­es
up to two years to get a fIXed-wire phone,
phone access today is more immediate. People
are simply using wireless until fIXed-wire catch­es
up. As a result, there are already more wire­less
than wired telecom users in Brazil and, as
the country is being wired, Brazilians are
exploding onto the Internet.
"Obviously, once voice access is established,
54 / I / 2000
our next challenge becomes one of getting peo­ple
connected to the Internet and addressing
their other data needs," Kirchdorfer said.
"Giving individuals immediate access to their
'stuff is what it's all about, regardless of loca­tion.
Beyond person-to-person and person-to­machine
communications, we also expect a sig­nificant
growth in machine-to-machine data
transactions - in the home as well as in the
commercial sector."
According to Kirchdorfer, industry experts
expect the number of worldwide wireless users
to surpass hard-wired ones by 2003, then keep
growing exponentially. Thus, the industry is
focused on delivering content over a wireless
network.
'Today, data is still significantly slower over
wireless than it is by wireline. That's why deliv­ering
high-speed voice and data over a wireless
environment is the next major inflection point
for society," he said. "Companies like Cisco
already receive up to 80 percent of their orders
online. Imagine what's going to happen to
world commerce once that small businessman
in China, or that Scandinavian reindeer meat
supplier, or that Venezuelan entrepreneur can
access world markets quickly and cost-effective­ly
right through their PCD."
Long a leader in mobile telephony, Europe is
already betting big on bandwidth since it is the
apparent key to content delivery. In fact, some
54/1/2000
countries are auctioning off bandwidth spec­trum
- and scoring big! Great Britain recently
received US$30 billion for the license to its
nationwide spectrum. Germany reportedly
received about US$40 bi llion for its license.
Given that 3G isn't even scheduled to go live
until 2001, in Spain, the partnerships that pur­chased
those licenses are enduring incredible
market entry costs and risks today in hopes of
high returns on those investments later on.
"Ericsson and our clients are investing heavi­ly
in new 3G, or third generation technology
that addresses speed and volume issues and
works across all of the world's network proto­cols,"
said Kirchdorfer.
In fact, globalization has totally become the
industry watchword. As people steadily become
more global in their communication needs,
they are absolutely demanding cross-border
synergies. As a result, telecom companies have
been forced into an aggressive expansion
mode, merging capital, equipment, technolo­gies,
and client pools. They've also been forced
to work together on 3G and other new tech­nologies.
WWW.T - BIRD .EDU
costs." Lillelund added that the next MEMS
switch will have a 1,024 by 1,024 mirror field
that will boost capacity 2s0-fold by 2005.
"We're also working on shooting streams of
light directly through the air and into homes
and buildings using non-damaging lasers -
which means that you might not even have to
wait for fiber optic cable to be installed."
Lillelund just participated in the first collabo­rative
video editing demonstration at the recent
digital Hollywood trade show, which connected
movie industry post-production facilities in
Beverly Hills, Calif., Toronto and New York City
for online editing. "People at all three sites were
seeing the same thing at the same time and
doing the actual editing online," he said.
"This technology will help the entertainment
industry significantly collapse development
times and costs, and has great potential for
other industries," he said. "In the pharmaceuti­cal
industry, for instance, it typically costs
US$700 million and takes 10 to 12 years to get
each drug through the FDA approval process.
We're talking truckloads and truckloads of
images, x-rays and other support­For
Mads Lillelund '87, vice
president of New Media at Lucent,
staying at the forefront of technol­ogy
is his full-time job. As such,
he works across borders and ven­dors
equally.
III
T'S ALL
ing documentation being
shipped back and forth between
labs, etc., that can be transmitted
online. With this system, regula­tors
can see, say, a brain tumor
that's been treated over a five-year
period and watch it as it actually
shrinks during a time-condensed
30-minute video. That's power­ful!
Or imagine auto designers at
DaimlerChrysler working online
ABOUT THE
'THREE ANYS':
"Technology is advancing so
quickly that optics and wireless
capacity is doubling every nine
months," said Lillelund. "To put
that in perspective, computer chip
capacity is only doubling every 18
ANY TIME, ANY
PLACE, AND
ANY HOW:'
months - which means that we have to get
content creators, developers, and service
providers to work together." Lillelund defined
'new media' as the 'Economy of Light: encom­passing
digital, broadband, and rich media.
''We're basically talking about everything you
and I will want as content: video-on-demand,
online entertainment, elearning - the list is
virtually endless."
Given that bandwidth is the Holy Grail for
content delivery and that fiber optics is today's
best source of it, fiber optics manufacturers
worldwide are working 24/7 in a headlong rush
to catch up to demand. But, innovation cer­tainly
isn't stopping there.
"We are already using new technologies like
Lucent's MEMS-based (Microelectromechanical
Systems) optical switches that transmit data by
light using 256 by 256 microscopic mirrors that
are placed on a single chip," he said. "And since
they're beaming light, not data - which have to
be converted into electronic impulses, then back
again - we can significantly increase transmis­sion
speeds which, in tum, reduce transmission
from both Strattsgart and Detroit
on a new car model, who can collapse the time
from concept to reality from three years to a few
months."
Advances such as these aren't science fiction,
according to Lillelund. He predicted that enter­tainment
industry executives would make and
save money using collaborative editing tech­niques
this year. He also said that Global Cross­ings
has already begun deploying MEMS chips
in some markets, and that laser channels are
currently being tested in four markets.
"New York's largest financial companies
already have this technology. I believe that
most businesses in major cities like New York
and London will be wired within five years and
that businesses in most of the world's metro­politan
areas will have it within 10," he said.
"Ultimately, we're looking to provide a link to
every single person and a light beam directly to
their PCD or desk. .. . Within five years? I think
it's safe to say that you will be communicating
and conducting business in a real-time, live­video
format, from just about any where and at
just about any time you want." •
p . I I
world of Bluetooth,
at work, at home, and every­where.
estimate that there will
be more than 1,000 Bluetooth-enabled
products on the market by 2004.
Bluetooth is a joint project of 3com,
Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft,
Motorola, Nokia and Toshiba, but nearly
all other companies are adapting its
standards. You can learn more by visiting
www.bluetooth.com.
Broadband (bandwidth) is the 'pipeline'
through which video and other increas­ingly
sophisticated forms of media wUI
be delivered to a mobile world.
'rich' media, as it is termed,
service (QoS) is a critical issue,
requires cooperation across
platforms, says Bradford
commercial director at Enron
Services who is in charge
demand technology.
more about the Ins ~
band, cable, flbe
_P._12 _________ ---l~~I~~~OI~;If--------------S-4/-1/-20-00
PRIVATIZATION
Every decade has a 'buzzword: and
in the 1990s it was definitely priva­tization.
Privatization was dearly
perceived as the cure-all for nations -
whether they were already developed or
still developing. This process - and pri­vatization
should be understood to be a
process - basically stood for the chang­ing
from complete government owner­ship
and control to something less than
that. Privatization is, therefore, a term
that covers a variety of outcomes: from
change of ownership to change of man­agement.
In each case, the government
ends up with less ownership or control
than it previously had.
Today privatization and deregulation
- which is its U.S. equivalent - is under
attack because end results have frequent­ly
not met expectations. To understand
why, one has to review the reasons why
governments seek to privatize in the first
place. There are three basic drivers for pri­vatization:
ideology, finance, and tech­nology
transfer.
Ideology played a major role in the pri­vatization
of government-owned enter­prises
in both Great Britain, under
Margaret Thatcher's leadership, and the
U.S. during Ronald Reagan's term.
Thatcher believed not only in limited
government, but also that privatization
would re-ignite England's entrepreneur­ial
spirit, and thus, end stagflation.
Reagan believed that government should
playa lesser role in people's lives. He also
believed that governments are never as
efficient as the private sector. These two
leaders sought privatization/deregulation
as a means of getting government out of
areas in which the private sector could better
operate.
In emerging nations, privatization allowed
governments to show their commitment to
reducing their own role while also creating a
more level playing field for the private sector.
After all, decades of government involvement in
the economy had not brought about significant
growth, so many government leaders no longer
subscribed to a 'dependency theory' that
absolved their countries from responsibility for
living standards. The World Bank and Inter­national
Monetary Fund were also factors in
these nations lessening the role of government
BY PROFESSOR SHOSHANA TANCER
in the economy. In the former Communist bloc
nations, which moved quickly towards privati­zation,
the primary motivation was to demon­strate
that they had indeed broken with the past.
Financial considerations also played an
important role in the choice to privatize.
Governments saw privatization as a way to
remove industries and/or sectors that were a
drain on their current budgets - as well as a
means for disengaging from activities that were
not competitive in world markets. Whereas
governments had previously accepted their role
as the 'employer of last resort' and the fact that
protected markets often led to lower quality of
goods, they began exammmg those
beliefs during the 1990s when globaliza­tion
and open access to markets became
the rule. They realized that productivity
and quality standards had to increase, but
that they could neither fire workers direct­ly
nor initiate and enforce necessary pro­ductivity
gains. Privatization was, there­fore,
their answer.
There were other financial benefits as
well. For one, privately owned companies
pay taxes - which increase revenues.
Governments could also receive an imme­diate
inflow of capital from the sale of
each business or asset. Such money could
be used - as it was in Mexico - to pay
down external debt, or used to create new
programs for which funds had not previ­ously
been available.
A third driver for privatization was the
potential for technology transfer. Through
privatization, countries could get modern
equipment and/or licenses and obtain
access to the latest processes. When
Mexico privatized TELMEX, it decided to
permit foreign as well as domestic owner­ship.
The government also solicited sig­nificant
ownership from two foreign tele­coms:
France Telecom and Southwestern
Bell (now SBC). At the time, France Tele­com
had the industry's most advanced
interactive system, Minitel, which provid­ed
consumers with access to restaurant
and airline information and reservations.
SBC, a U.S. company, had faced chal­lenges
similar to what awaited it in
Mexico - having provided service to
both major metropolises and vast geo­graphic
areas with low population densi­ty
in the U.S. As a result of this infusion of
cash and the latest technology and know-how,
TELMEX quickly became a significantly more
efficient telecom player.
Given Mexico's level of success, most nations
have now privatized - or are in the process of
privatizing - their telecom sector. Although
landline domestic service has frequently been
kept out of foreign hands, there is no dearth of
competition for buyers of mobile and cellular
licenses.
Privatization, however, is a process. It will fail
if there is a lack of planning and if the appro­priate
steps are not taken sequentially. Privatiza­tion
can, in fact, be an initial success in terms of
54 / ' / 2000
removing a government's financial burden, but
it can still fail in the longer term. For the initial
privatization to succeed, each country must con­duct
a careful study of its society. First they must
do an accurate assessment of the culture. Who
are the people? What is their level of education?
Their attitude toward work? Motivating factors?
Has capitalism ever existed? There are many
who contend that one of the reasons the
Russian privatization effort faltered was that the
nation jumped from feudalism to communism
and that the people had never experienced the
problems - as well as the benefits - which
arise from the economic risk-taking that is an
inherent element of capitalism.
There also has to be an existing institutional
framework for privatization efforts to succeed.
By that, I mean a legal framework that protects
creditors and debtors alike, and which permits
failing businesses to actual ly fail and dosure to
occur. There have to be capital markets and
financial institutions, so that there can be liq­uidity
in the share holdings, potential buyers
who can sell at will, and credit that is made
WWW.T - BIRD .E DU
will most likely be directly and indirectly
impacted by these efforts. The government must,
therefore, begin by determining how to maxi­mize
acceptance of the privatization by those in
government, by workers in the companies that
are to be privatized, by those who would be
competitors, and by the public at large.
In making lhese preparalions, the govern­ment
must develop a dear and comprehensive
plan for privatization. It must make sure that it
has legal authorizalion for such activity. In
some instances, governments have had their
constitutions amended to provide this certain­ty.
In other instances, new legislation and/or
the creation of a new agency may be sufficient.
The government then has to dearly define its
intentions. Is it going to privatize a sector or a
company? Is it going to transfer ownership or
transfer management? Are foreign entities or
individuals going to be permitted to participate
and, if so, to what extent? Once these issues
have been resolved on a policy level, the gov­ernment
must ensure that delegation of author­ity
is dear and specific, that funding exists, and
available to the new or reorgan­lhat
agency personnel believe
ized entities. Privatization also
requires a judicial system that is
recognized as fair, open, and
able to help resolve disputes on
a timely and equitable basis.
"T HE SOCIETY
in the new goals and can act
without government intet-
HAS TO TOLERATE vention.
Timetables and schedules
must be prepared and
adhered to. Goals must be
seen as credible. And the pub­lic
must be kept informed so
that charges of corruption are
unlikely to occur. People
must also recognize that every
DIFFERENCES AND
The society itself has to toler­ate
differences and be comfort­able
with dispute resolution
techniques. It is also useful if
there are non-governmental
organizations that can mediate
between the interests of specif­BE
COMFORTABLE
WITH DISPUTE
RESOLUTION
TECHNIQUES:'
privatization - even in a sin­gle
nation - is different. There is no such thing
as a cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-aH approach
to privatization. Each effort must be evaluated
and the method that is chosen must correspond
to the goals and objectives of the nation at the
time that privatization takes place.
ic groups and the government, much as envi­ronmental
groups in the United States speak on
behalf of a large number of individuals who
might otherwise not make an impact on gov­ernment
policy-making.
Finally, the government that is embarking on
or implementing privatization has to have
legitimacy and stability. A totalitarian govern­ment
or dictatorship may have short-term sta­bility
and be able to mandate privatization.
However once that administration ends, its acts
are frequently questioned and, sometimes,
overturned. A democracy, on the other hand,
has more difficulty in initially carrying out a
privatization effort because it needs the support
of the populace, but its efforts are more likely
to endure once implemented.
Canying out a privatization requires signifi­cant
research, a determination of the impact of
alternatives, and the creation of a coherent gov­ernment
policy framework. It is essential that
planned goals and objectives are dearly thought
through and articulated. The public must know
what the government hopes to achieve and who
Looking at privatizations over the past
decade, one readily sees that privatization for
the sake of privatization is not effective. Gov­ernments
have to recognize the role competi­tion
and regu lation play in a capitalistic setting.
Without competition, the restructured company
has little incentive to perform differently than it
did before. Even with competition, there is no
guarantee that the public will be better served if
effective regulations are not also put in place.
That is one reason we are now seeing a back­lash
against privatization in many countries -
like the Czech Republic - that had initially
been viewed as successful. Governments, how­ever,
are becoming ever-more-sophisticated at
understanding the ramifications of privatiza­tion
and are working to make them more suc­cessful
in the future. •
p . , 3
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
p.14 WWW.T- BIRD .EDU
MIMIA Distance Learning
Program Graduates First Class
BY LINDSEY MICHAELS
They were the first of a new breed ofT-bird grad­uates.
All reside in Mexico, have full-time jobs,
and now have joint degrees from Instituto
Tecnol6gico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey
(ITESM) and Thunderbird. There were 104 of them
and on June 30, they became the first graduates of the
new Masters of International Management for Latin
America (MIMLA) distance learning degree program.
"With MIMLA, students were able to get simultane­ous
degrees from two world dass universities," said
Bert Valencia, MIMLA director and an associate pro­fessor
of marketing at Thunderbird. "ITESM has the
top-ranked MBA program in Latin America, while
Thunderbird has the top-rated international program
in the U.S. Our students also get to stay at home, con­tinue
gaining work experience, and they don't have to
uproot their families."
The MIMLA program leverages distance learning
technology to link high potential Latin American exec­utives
with some of today's top teachers of global
skills and strategy. This two-year 'lock step' program
combines in-person and live, broadcast lectures with
the type of hands-on, real-company case analysis that
helps facilitate success in to day's global economy.
MIMLA students focus specifically on Latin Amer-
ICa s unique cultures and business needs and are
taught by professors from both schools. They also
learn from and network with their working peers -
who are located throughout Mexico and in Peru.
"Watching this graduation was one of the most
exciting professional experiences of my life," said Dr.
Tony Dieck-Assad, director, MIMLA program ITESM
and a professor of operations management. "I am very
proud of these executives; they have worked very hard.
And seeing all of them receiving their diplomas made
me very emotional." Despite the fact that all graduates
were from Mexico, more then 300 of their friends and
family members attended the graduation ceremony in
Glendale - which was also broadcast live to Mexico
for those who couldn't make the trip. Graduates even
got to speak with their Mexican-based loved ones dur­ing
the festivities.
The MIMLA degree is modeled after Thunderbird's
proven tripartite program, and combines courses in
international business, international studies, and
English Business Communications. It is particularly
well suited for students who want to continue gaining
work experience while obtaining leading edge skill
sets that apply directly to their current jobs. Students
begin by coming to Thunderbird for about 10 days,
54/1/2000
TOP MIMLA 2000 class president
Eugenio lee proudly addresses his
fellow graduates. ABOVE Dr. Tony
Dieck of ITESM and Dr. Bert
Valencia of Thunderbird nurture the
MIMLA program and partnership.
LEFT MIMLA students participate in
the Flag Parade. Their graduation
ceremony was broadcast live to
ITESM sites in Mexico where family
members who couldn't come to the
u.s. had gathered.
~E FACULTY ALONE IS A GUARANTEE OF A SUCCESSFUL MIMLA EXPERIENCE.
54/1/2000
during which time they meet
each other and their teachers,
and get acquainted with the tech­nology
they'll be using for the
next two years. Classes then meet
every other Friday afternoon and
Saturday at an ITESM site.
WWW.T - BIRD . EDU
According to Dieck, graduating
students rated MIMLA's program
content, methodology; and over­all
value quite highly - which
Incoming MIMLA 2002 class members cele­brate
at the Pub during the last night of their
lO-day Thunderbird orientation.
today," said Alejandro
Marti, a relationship manag­erwith
Citibank, Mexico. "As
MIMLA graduates, I believe
we have many advantages
that people graduating from
the on-campus program do
not have. Namely the work
experience that you don't
lose, the knowledge about
technology that you gain,
was especially important to ITESM given that half the
initial MIMLA class held ITESM undergraduate degrees.
Dieck also finds it significant that over 90 percent of all
MIMLA students who began the program completed it.
"It took a very forward thinking group to take the
risk of being the first MIMLA program class and I think
it pulled us all together," said Ruben Dari6 Trevino,
an operations director with Asista.com in Mexico.
"Both Thunderbird and ITESM have taken this endeav­or
very seriously and have appointed the best of their
teachers for the program. This is an opportunity that
no one should miss."
"My MIMLA degree gives me the best of both
worlds," said Eugenio Lee, class president for the
MIMLA 2000 graduates. "ITESM is the recognized
leader in MBA education in Mexico so everyone here
knows the value of my degree - whereas people in
Mexico who are not exposed to the global market may
not know Thunderbird. Outside of Mexico though, it's
the other way around. People may not know ITESM,
but they do know the value and reputation ofThun­derbird."
Lee works in the global sourcing department of
General Electric, where, he says, contacts and knowing
where to go for product and raw materials is critical.
"One of the greatest strengths of the MIMLA program
is the network you develop. There is such diversity in
your class, very experienced people who are all in dif­ferent
classes, of different ages, and working in differ­ent
companies. This is an opportunity you don't usu­ally
get in Mexico."
Lee added that he already knows that one of his
new bosses is from Thunderbird, as are a local co­worker,
a Brazilian co-worker, and one in the U.S.
"Knowing them and sharing a Thunderbird connec­tion
is very powerful to me," Lee said.
There is now one MIMLA student for approximate­ly
every six full-time Thunderbird students. They also
already account for more than one of every three
known alumni in Mexico. That means that the MIMLA
program will play an intricate role in rapidlyexpand­ing
Thunderbird's network and name recognition in
Mexico - as well as in Latin America - as the pro­gram
expands throughout the region.
"I think that everyone is satisfied with what we've
done in the past two years and what we're finishing
and access to some of the very best professors.
"I'm joining the Thunderbird Alumni Association
Latin America Council because I believe that as alum­ni
of Thunderbird, we still have to be involved in all
the activities that take place on-campus and off," said
Marti. "In Mexico for example, there are going to be
100 new alumni graduating each year from the
MIMLA program. That's an explosion of growth that
will eventually give Thunderbird a lot of presence in
this country and in other Latin American countries."
Given that ITESM operates 29 facilities in Mexico
and eight other Latin American countries, the MIMLA
partnership could - and should - expand exponen­tially.
The 2001 MIMLA class already includes students
who live in Peru and both ITESM's Dieck and Thun­derbird's
Valencia said they expect to continue adding
students from other countries to the MIMLA mix
shortly. "In our three years, we already have students
from Belize, BraziL Colombia, Germany, Mexico,
Panama, Peru, Spain, United States, and Venezuela.
"I expect next year to be a banner year," said Valen­cia.
"And by 2005, I hope to have the 20 or 30 best cor­porate
students in each of the largest 10 to 15 cities in
Latin America enrolled in our program. Just imagine
it," he continued. "Directors or vice presidents of
major corporations in five to seven countries working
together on group projects and opening doors for one
another throughout Latin America. That's the poten­tial
we're talking about here."
THE MIMLA PARTNERSHIP
Thunderbird and ITESM each bring unparalleled
strengths to the MIMLA program. Thunderbird has
been ranked number one in international business by
U.S. News and World Report for five consecutive years.
The School and its faculty are recognized experts in
global management education and have adapted the
MIMLA program to focus specifically on Latin Ameri­can
issues.
ITESM offers the number-one-ranked MBA program
in Latin America. It also has considerable expertise in
distance learning education - with a full vi rtual uni­versity
infrastructure at its disposal. The MIMLA pro­gram
leverages that expertise and technology to deliv­er
outstanding international programs and faculty
access to senior-level Latin American executives. _
THIS IS AN OPPORTUNITY NO ONE SHOULD MISS:'- Ruben Dari6
p.15
MIMLA 2002 ARRIVES
One hundred fifteen students In the
Master of International Management
for Latin America (MIMLA) class of
2002 began their coursework on
August 11 with a lO-day Orientation
and leadership seminar on Thunder­bird's
Glendale campus. Ninety-three
men and 22 women comprise the
new MIMLA group. which represents
SIX nations including MeXICO. the
United States. Peru. Cuba. Canada
and Belize
The students attend their classes via
distance learning technology at seven
different campuses In Latin America.
Including six sites In MeXICO. and one
in Lima. Peru. Plans are In the works to
begin transmitting MIMLA courses to
sites In Buenos Aires. Argentina and
Santiago. Chile as soon as next year
MIMLA seeks the top students In
each target city. and ludglng from the
class of 2002. MIMLA has found
them The new students share an
average of five years of profeSSional
work experience: their average PAEP
(aptitude test In Mexico) scores put
them In the top qUintile of test-tak­ers:
and their computerIZed TOEFL
score average of 247 (eqUivalent to
597 on the paper TOEFL) proves the
group has excellent English language
skills. Many members of thiS new
crop of students work for top com­panies
such as ALAS (Aeromexlco).
IBM. HP. CEMEX. VITRO, and Proctor
and Gamble. "By pooling together
the best bUSiness students In Latin
America. we have a tremendously
rich environment for learning Inter­national
business." says MIMLA di rec­tor
Humberto ValenCia. "Look out for
several top CEOs and outstanding
entrepreneurs (from the MIMLA pro­gram)"
With the 117 students who are contin­uing
In the MIMLA 2001 program. this
enthUSiastic and promising group of
new students brings the total MIMLA
population to 232 for this year
They were the" original Thunderbirds, a hardy, driven bunch of predominantly men who
came to Thunderbird Field #1 for flight training before being sent to storm the unfriend­ly
skies of World War II. On October 12th, 55 former students and instructors brought
their friends and families to what might be the last, tri-annual 'Helmets and Goggles' Pilots
Reunion Weekend at the school that has carried on their traditions now for more than half a cen­tury.
For those of us who had the pleasure of spending time with them, they served as an unshak­able
reminder of just how genuine friendship and commitment can grow throughout the years.
54 / 1 / 2000
If you haven't already heard the
story, Thunderbird began as a u.s.
Army Air Force field nearly 60 years
ago - having been built purely on
patriotism and private funds. You see,
the u.s. Congress had refused to fund
the massive build-up of the airplanes,
airfields, and such that America, Great
Britain, and China needed for the war.
So a very determined General Hap
Arnold approached fellow patriots
such as Hollywood screen legends
Janet Gaynor, Jimmy Stewart, Henry
Fonda and Hoagy Carmichael, as well
as fellow visionaries Leland Hayward,
John Connelly and John Swope, for
some much-needed philanthropic
help. Without so much as a written
contract, those people coughed up
more than $1 million - in 1940's era
dollars - to build the base, which
opened on March 23, 1941, and
which helped over 16,000 U.S. Air
Corps Cadets learn how to fly through
war's end in 1945. But that was just
the beginning; the group had to keep
on investing - up to $25,000 a
month for aviation fuel alone - for a
year-and-one-half before Congress
finally appropriated funds.
The one-square-mile Thunderbird
airfield was, literally, carved out of the
Arizona desert, thanks to the unbeliev­able
generosity and unprecedented
vision of some undisputed patriots.
And so was Thunderbird the School.
With the 'war to end all wars' now
ended and millions of soldiers head­WWW.
T- BIRD . EDU
Student Binita Choksi from the u .S. was the f irst recipient of the
Butch Jackson Thunderbird Pilots Memorial Scholarship. Butch's son
Frank (left) and Gerry Oppenheimer challenged the pilots to keep
their legacy alive by building their scholarship into the biggest and
most prestigious fund at Thunderbird.
p . 1 7
preventing future wars. So Yount and
his band of devotees petitioned
Congress, bought the base on July 8,
1946, assembled a faculty, curriculum,
and student body, and began dasses at
the then American Institute of Foreign
Trade just three months later on
October 1.
Fifty-four years later, Thunderbird,
The American Graduate School of
International Management, has
remained true to its charter. The School
is still attracting pioneers, equipping
them with the language, culture, and
business skills they need to succeed on
global missions, then sending them
forth to help forge that ever-more-pres­ent
single world economy.
"The men and women who are here
this weekend represent us at our best.
They are a generation that was asked
to put off personal dreams and ambi­tions
for a greater, common purpose,"
said Dr. Roy A. Herberger, Jr., presi­dent
of Thunderbird. "It is an honor
for those of us at Thunderbird today
to host the 'Helmets & Goggles'
reunion ."
Pride and a deep-rooted sense of
kinship that time hasn't dimmed a bit
were evident all throughout the week­end
as old friends gathered, shared rev­elries,
and mourned friends they'd lost
along the route. This year's event
appeared especially marred by the
recent loss of Butch Jackson, an
instructor pilot, who had long been the
reunion's driving force. There was even
ing home, it was Thunderbird Field's commander, Lt. General Barton Kyle
Yount, who first envisioned a private business school. In the wake of the
World War's utter devastation, Yount believed that building global rela­tionships
and a worldwide economy offered mankind its greatest hope of
talk of this reunion being the pilots' last given Butch's death.
Yet, this remained a very honored and upbeat group. Having honored
their fallen leader by creating the Butch Jackson Thunderbird Pilots
Scholarship, they seemed pleased to meet Binita Choksi, the American
LEFT British and u .S. pilot pro­gram
instructor Don Posser was
profoundly moved by his experi­ences
at Thunderbird. All five
living members of his six mem­ber
instructor team came to the
reunion. CENTER Squire Storrs
says that Thunderbird Field's
commander, Gen. Barton Kyle
Yount, would be very proud of
what Thunderbird the School
has become today. RIGHT Norb
Lypps is still being kidded about
the student pilot who bounced
out of the cockpit and wound
up clinging onto the plane's tail
section for dear life.
p . I 8 WWW.T- BIRD . EDU 54/1/2000
student who was the scholarship's first recipient. They also met Butch's
son Frank. who expressed his heartfelt thanks on behalf of his family.
Gerry Oppenheimer then asked the pilots to create a truly lasting legacy
by helping to make their scholarship the largest one at Thunderbird.
Highlights of the Year 2000 'Helmets & Goggles' Reunion included
dinners with Thunderbird's Board of Trustees and current students, a
special John Swope Bombs
Away photo exhibition, and
a tour of Luke Air Force base
and Falcon Field - where
the pilots had also trained.
While Luke's sleek. modem
fleet of F-1G fighter jets cer­tainly
held some appeal for
the aviators, it was at Falcon
Field's Champlin Fighter
Museum in Mesa that the
pilots really came alive.
They dined surrounded by
nostalgic planes then made
their way outside to where a
Stearman PT-17 biplane -
like the one they'd f1own­had
just landed and stood
awaiting their inspection.
That plane triggered
memories.
dent pilot of his who wound up hanging outside the plane. "We were
coming into the traffic pattern at about 500 feet and he had to roll into a
90 degree tum for home," Lypps said. "Well, when he pushed in on the
stick, it jerked and he went right out of his seat because he'd forgotten to
fasten his safety belt. He wound up with his parachute braced against the
tail fin and clinging on for life." Lypps said he quickly climbed to 3,000
feet and told the student to
clamber in, reminding him
that the added height
would provide ample time
for his parachute to deploy
if he failed. "I don't know
how, but he made it in,"
Lypps said, adding with a
malicious pilot's grin, "and
we never even scratched the
plane."
Don Prosser, the distin­guished
flight commander
of both the advanced and
British training programs,
lovingly inspected the cock­pit
of his old friend, then
Gerry Oppenheimer gives a 'thumbs-up' from one of his favorite places - inside the cockpit
of a Stearman PT-17 biplane like the one he flew at Thunderbird. Oppenheimer was one of
the main 'unsung heroes' who helped make this year's 'Helmets & Goggles' pilots reunion a
reality. PHOTO BELOW Fighter Gunner, Arizona, 1942
"1 have over 17,000
hours of flying time in a
Stearman plane," said
Squire Storrs, the sen ior­most
of the pilot instruc­tors
at age 90, who also
doubled as base barber. "I
was here from the day
Thunderbird Field opened
in March of 1941 until the
day it closed in '45. I'm
proud to say that 1 got to
know General Yount quite
well during that time and
I've got to tell you that
from what I've seen of
proudly posed with all five surviving members of his six-person flight
instructor team. To those of us left watching. it was like seeing seasoned
warriors time-warped back into their glorious twenties.
"We were only here in Arizona for four precious years of our lives, from
'41 to '45, but those years left an indelible impression upon our lives that
is still very much here with all of us today," he said as his eyes welled up
with tears. "I still get very emotional." Prosser, who, like many of the
instructors, remained active in aviation throughout his life, remembered
one terrible storm that blew through Falcon Field, ripping row after row
of planes from their moorings and leaving 35 of them piled three-deep in
the adjacent citrus grove. He also spoke softly of the single cadet pilot he
lost during flight training more than 50 years ago, and you somehow
understand that for this tall and stately man, who was raised long before
random violence reigned, respect for
human life remains forever resolute.
But, there were funny stories too. Norb
Lypps was still being kidded about the stu-
Thunderbird this weekend, I think he would still very much approve."
We hope so. Thunderbird is one of the world's leading graduate busi­ness
schools, having been recognized by US News & World Report as the
number one school for international management during each of the
last five years. The School has already helped 32,000 alumni take flight
for challenging international careers with 12,000 companies in 135
countries. Approximately 1,500 new students from 70-plus countries
enter its gate each year with new dreams of their own.
Just like their financi ally-challenged Thunderbird Field forefathers,
Thunderbird's current school officials are now seeking out some modem
patriots who can help fund the facility, faculty, and other program
improvements currently needed to ensure that Thunderbird retains its
Top Gun title. •
TO LEARN MORE ABOlIf Thunderbird's history or to become part of its
financial future, please contact Laurel Kimball, assistant vice president of
individual giving. at kimballl@t-bird.edu (G02) 978-7309 .
"THANK YOU FOR PERPETUATING THE NAME 'THUNDERBIRD: FROM THE TIME
THE SCHOOL WAS FOUNDED, IT WAS THE SYMBOL OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
EMBRACING THE AREAS OF HIGHLY SPECIALIZED TRAINING-FLIGHT TRAINING­TO
FULFILL THE NEED FOR WARTIME PREPAREDNESS. NOW, YOUR ENDEAVOR IS
PROVIDING THE WORLD WITH HIGHLY SKILLED AND TRAINED PEOPLE IN THE
AREA OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT:'
-EDGAR MATTSON, PILOT, IN A POST-EVENT LETTER TO DR. HERBERGER
LE
T hey met at Thunderbird,
have lived and traveled the
world together, and believe
that both their daughters might follow
them to Thunderbird. They are Bob
'79 and Melanie '80 Franko and they
are long-time financial supporters of
Thunderbird .
"First and foremost, Thunderbird
holds special meaning to me because I
met my wife there," said Bob Franko,
who founded and runs the California­based
Generations Trust Bank. "But
beyond that, everything I've been able
to accomplish has been as a result of
my education, particularly my experi­ence
at Thunderbird. It was a very
unique educational experience."
The Frankos have both lived and
worked overseas. Bob has served as the
BECOME A LEADERSHIP DONOR
To invest in Thunderbird:
• Give online at Thunderbird's secure
https://secure.t-bird.edu/gift Web site.
• Print the online form and fax it to
(602) 978-8238.
• Use the return envelope in this magazine.
For more information or to give by
phone. contact
• Office of Individual Giving (800) 457-6981
(U.S. only), (602) 978-7309, or via email
at mygift@t-bird.edu
• Office of Corporate and Foundation
Relations (800) 457-6957 (U.S. only),
(602) 978-7641, or via email at
cfr@t-birdedu
s p
chief financial officer
and chief executive
officer at several
banks and invest-ment
companies.
Melanie has worked
extensively in private
investing, initially
with Citibank and
then Security Pacific
Bank, more recently
with high net worth
families.
ratt
"I've found
Thunderbird to be a
... Anne-Marie, Melanie '80, Caroline, and Bob Franko '79
passport to a whole new world of
possibilities," said Melanie. "To new
Bob and Melanie Franko and their
Franko Family Foundation have long
been leadership annual donors to
jobs, to a new per-spective
on every job,
to every new person
that I meet. Bob and I
are working very hard
to ensure that our
daughters have some
of the experiences
we both had at
Thunderbird - but
Thunderbird.
They've consistently
donated each year
during the School's
annual Thunderbird
Fund campaign,
earning them
President's Council
Benefactor stature.
JJI've found
Thunderbird
to be a passport
to a whole
new world of
possibilities. "
"We've always
believed in charitable giving," said
Bob. "Now that we have the girls,
much earlier in their young lives."
Both of the Franko children attend
the highly respected Lycee Fran